


My Husband, My Boyfriend, and Me

by eggstasy



Series: cosmoverse [3]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-05-28 02:44:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6312271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggstasy/pseuds/eggstasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Grif can be discouraged just by ignoring him.  Simmons has a hard time with that strategy because he hates it when Grif is wrong when he’s insisting on being right and he also hates it when Grif thinks HE'S wrong when he’s ABSOLUTELY right but in this case, because he has better things to do, he’ll let it slide.</p><p>…right after he sets the record straight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How to Flirt Without Making Human Contact

“They’re so in love.”

Simmons scowls at his datapad. Why is it not compiling? It’s supposed to be compiling. Doyle put him on this assignment last night and isn’t expecting any results until next week so Simmons wanted to present the finished project to him later today. Not because he’s trying to impress anybody or anything, he just wants to demonstrate his efficiency and okay maybe also impress Doyle a little bit. Doyle does seem the more reasonable of the two generals when it comes to assigning duties, since Kimball’s idea of assigning duties is telling Simmons and Grif to throw themselves into a firefight and pump up the troops. Pump up the troops with their humiliation and/or gruesome deaths, maybe. “…what?”

“Them. In love.” There’s a smack on his shoulder and Simmons finally looks up to see Grif jab a finger at Tucker and Wash arguing over which rifle to train the Lieutenants on.

Simmons cranes his neck. “Who’s in love?” Are they behind Tucker and Wash?

“Seriously dude? _Tucker and Wash._ ”

Simmons rolls his eyes and returns his attention to his work.

“They argue all the time, they’re always staring at each other, they’re always getting up in each other’s business-”

“By that logic half the people on Chorus are in love.” Simmons sighs and opens the source code. Time for a bug hunt, his _favorite._ No really, it’s actually his favorite. There’s nothing more satisfying than finding and fixing a problem that other people struggle with. “In case you didn’t notice Grif, we’re in close quarters. Getting up in each other’s business is kind of part and parcel of never having a minute to yourself.”

“That’s not the same and you know it.”

Sometimes Grif can be discouraged just by ignoring him. Simmons has a hard time with that strategy because he hates it when Grif is wrong when he’s insisting on being right and he _also_ hates it when Grif thinks _he’s_ wrong when he’s _absolutely_ right but in this case, because he has better things to do, he’ll let it slide.

…right after he sets the record straight. “Yeah, it’s actually exactly the same. They’re even worse off because of all the time we spent at Crash Site Bravo. Don’t you remember how long Tucker and Church would bitch back in Blood Gulch? It’s just close quarters agitation, seriously.”

“Simmons, I know you’re severely lacking in the ‘having done anything romantic ever’ department, up to and including getting your dick wet with another actual human being-”

“I-I’ve had sex before!” Simmons protests, feeling his face go hot. “With a _human!_ ”

“Oh man, a real live _human_ ,” Grif drawls and the bastard is smiling, Simmons can hear it. This fat fuck. Like _he’s_ done anything with anybody. How can they be expected to _do_ anything anyway when they’re always around each other all the goddamn time? It’s not Simmons’s fault that he has a low sex drive and social anxiety!

“Shut up Grif,” Simmons snaps back. “Why do you care about what Tucker and Washington do anyway? If they want to yell at each other all day long, that’s their business.”

“Simmons, you are so narrow-minded,” Grif sighs, and Simmons hates that too, when Grif acts like he’s so world-weary when he barely does anything all day.

“So what, you want to figure out whether those two are having sex or if this is just some really meta queer-baiting?” The jerky shock of Grif’s helmet swinging around to face Simmons is satisfying enough that he can ignore how uncomfortable it made him to say the word ‘queer.’ “Yeah, I know what that is. If you’re so invested, go get involved. And _leave me alone_ while you do it.”

“Do you think they should get together? Biblically.”

“You didn’t really need to clarify.”

“Okay, so do you?” Grif sounds too interested, too _sharp_ for him to have this conversation. They’d always managed to steer it away and ignore it before, so why is he so focused on it now? Ugh. “Simmons, come on. I figure you’d be totally against it.”

“Why?” _Please don’t ask me about my upbringing. Please don’t make me explain shit._

“Well, because Tucker is one hundred percent trash and you have a huge crush on Washington-”

Simmons sputters. “I do _not_ have a crush on Wash! I just think he’s an effective leader, and that he wields authority really effectively-”

“K-I-S-S-I-”

“Fuck you Grif, I don’t have a crush on Wash!”

Simmons discovers, in this moment, just how much the world hates him. It's almost like he's the main character in this comedy movie, where you're supposed to laugh at how dumb and awkward and embarrassing they are. They trip over themselves trying to talk to the cute girl. They fumble their food tray and dump it all over the violent, vindictive jock. They flunk their tests, they miss their ride, they have no friends and everybody laughs and laughs.

Nobody laughs at first, because everything's fucking pin-drop silent when he yells at Grif. Everyone is quiet, everyone's staring at him, including Tucker, including Washington. And Grif, that prick, has his hands shoved against his visor in what's obviously glee, because everything's fucking _funny_ to him.

“Uh,” says Washington, voice high and strangled. No. No this can't happen.

“I don't!” Simmons tries to say authoritatively but his voice has to crack. Because he's the hero, the loser, the butt of the cosmic joke.

“Oh damn Simmons, looks like you guys can go through puberty together,” Grif snickers. “How long's it gonna take for you guys to hold hands? Are you gonna go steady?”

Maybe everyone isn't laughing yet, but they'll eventually get there and Tucker kicks it off with his incredibly obnoxious squeaking laughter, the kind he gets when he doubles over and has to prop himself up on something. That something this time is Wash and Simmons can feel his face burning, scalding hot as he watches Wash avoid looking him in the face. Fuck. _Fuck._ He's probably going over all of the bullshit from the crashsite, all the ass-kissing he did because he'd just wanted just _once_ to have a leader who actually knew what they were doing. Just fucking once, in his joke of career, he'd wanted someone to look up to.

Simmons uses his robotic hand to punch Grif in the shoulder as hard as he can before he storms off. And he knows it a few minutes later, knows it probably said a lot how pissed he is because he never resorts to brutish displays like that when words can do so much more, but just this one time he doesn't have any ready and doesn't want to take the time to organize them into an argument. Not over something like that, not with _Grif_ tearing into him in front of _Tucker_ of all people, an asshole who sniffs out insecurities like blood in the water.

Not for the first time, Simmons wishes Grif wasn't such a fucking asshole. Maybe if he was nice once in a while, he'd be able to explain to himself why he bothers having feelings for that fat prick.

 

* * *

 

After four days of silence, Grif realizes that maybe he went kind of too far. It usually wasn't so hard to tell, but after years of living with the guy Grif really ought to know better than to rag on stuff having to do with Simmons's sexuality. Just because Simmons was such a fucking prude when it came to sex anyway that even _trying_ to introduce the concept of a Kinsey Scale to the nerd was like walking through a minefield of closeted, homophobic gay scares.

From how he's talked about them, Grif figures his parents would probably have actually used the words 'gay scare' unironically. _Oh dear, did you hear about the Johnsons down the street? Yes. Yes, their daughter gave them the worst gay scare the other day when she referred to her little friend as her girlfriend. They were even holding hands! How scandalous._

There were advantages to not really having parents around for most of your life, Grif supposed. Though he's getting awfully goddamn tired of babysitting this particular aspect of Simmons that his parents royally screwed up.

Maybe he _should_ go the Kinsey Scale route. Simmons loves classifying things. He might actually like it.

Either way, since Simmons hasn't come up to talk to him once in four days, Grif figures that's probably his cue to go apologize or something. Simmons will be a little bitch about it for a while, Grif will probably have to agree to do something mind-numbingly boring like help him color code his spreadsheets but then after that they can go watch _Battlestar_ for the eighth time.

Grif doesn't put too much effort into it, because then Simmons will suspect his intent to apologize isn't genuine. Also because he doesn't want to. “Hey,” he says as he lets himself into Simmons's quarters. Simmons gives him a furious glare before looking away and returning to...whatever he's doing. Maintenance, looks like. “Oh come on, seriously?”

More silence. Ooh boy.

Grif grabs the back of the chair Simmons has his foot propped up on and yanks it back, spinning it around to straddle it. Simmons glares even harder now, as hard as his nerdy face can manage and there's actually some real anger in there instead of just annoyance and embarrassment. This is going to require the actual words. “Look, whatever I did, I'm sorry,” Grif sighs.

Simmons kicks the chair and almost knocks the back of it against Grif's nuts, which is fucking rude. “You're an asshole. You know my squad's been sending me self-help articles? Actual articles! About how to _land a guy!”_

Grif tells himself not to laugh but he does it after laughing, so that probably wasn't helpful. “What're some of the articles?” The look he gets for that is withering. “Just one, just gimme one.”

This is the pivotal moment. Interaction with Simmons is by this point so much instinct and rote that Grif doesn't even have to consciously think about it anymore, so he feels more than thinks that this here is going to determine how angry Simmons is. If he reads him a headline, he'll forgive him. If he doesn't, he's still too mad and Grif'll have to try again in a few more days.

Simmons stares flatly at him before scooping up a nearby tablet and listing in his most annoyed tone, “ _How to Flirt Without Making Human Contact._ ”

“Holy shit, do they ever know you.” Grif doesn't bother masking his delight because he is, he's delighted. He's delighted that someone had the figurative balls to send that to Simmons, and he's delighted that Simmons has a gaggle of girls who are apparently eagerly trying to hook him up with the most hard-assed CO to ever strut through Armonia.

“It's not funny Grif!” Simmons throws the tablet back onto his bed and starts gathering up his tools. “I keep telling them I don't have a crush on Wash but they're not listening to me!”

“I'm guessing you keep stammering every time you talk to them?”

Simmons turns almost an unhealthy shade of red. “Th-that's got nothing to do with it!”

“Yeah it does. They think you don't really mean it. You don't tell them with your helmet off, do you?” Simmons doesn't answer and Grif groans, throwing his head back and rolling his eyes. “You idiot! You turn red at _anything,_ they probably think you're just being all shy and shit!”

“It was only once!” Simmons protests.

“Once is all it takes. Dude? I have a little sister. I know girls better than you do.”

Simmons scoffs. “I seriously doubt that.”

An idea strikes Grif like lightning and he pushes himself up. “Okay, so you want me to prove it? I'll get them off your back about Wash.”

“You're _volunteering_ to do something?” Simmons rolls his pant leg back down over his robotic knee. “What's the catch?”

“For you to stop bitching, mostly.” Grif swipes one of the ration bars sitting atop Simmons' desk as he passes by. “And I want this. All right? I'll go handle this, you fucking wimp.” There's literally no way this could go wrong.

 

* * *

 

Simmons is going to _kill Grif._

When he doesn't find him in his room, hiding in the medical wing, in anyone _else's_ room or sleeping in the most secluded corner he can find in the armory, Simmons finally enlists Church's help.

**SIM: Can you find Grif for me?**

**CHR: Whats in it for me Red**

**SIM: I'll do all the group reorganization for that inventory project you're working on for Doyle.**

**CHR: You LIKE doing that shit**

**SIM: Yeah but you hate it. Deal or what?**

**CHR: I dont like how confident your getting it makes you harder to manipulate**

**CHR: Deal**

**CHR: Behind the west barracks third floor fire escape**

**SIM: Thanks I think.**

**SIM: You used the wrong form of 'you're.'**

**CHR: Eat shit you fucking nerd**

Grif is there and predictably napping, one leg dangling over the edge of the walkway and Simmons marvels, once again, how amazing it is that Grif can sleep literally anywhere. It's almost like he's without fear, though Simmons knows he won't sleep in caves. He'd had a hell of a time finding places to nap at the Rebel base that hadn't terrified the shit out of him.

Simmons doesn't bother wasting time kicking Grif and instead just flips on his voice amplifier. “HOLY SHIT THERE'S BATS IN THIS BUILDING!”

When he finally gets Grif calmed down enough to sit back down, Simmons really lets him have it. “Grif you fucking _idiot!_ You didn't solve anything! You made everything worse and- why the fuck would you tell them something like that?!”

Grif huffs and glares at him, running a hand through his sweaty hair. Probably busted his temperature controls, _again._ “Why not?”

“Why n- _Because it's not true!_ ” Simmons wants to grab Grif's helmet and chuck it off the fire escape- no, he'd rather grab _Grif_ and chuck him off the fire escape, but he doesn't have any heavy-lift equipment handy. He'll have to settle for yelling as furiously and loudly as he dares. “What the hell is the big idea telling them that _we're_ dating?!”

Grif shrugs. “You can't discourage chicks from fantasizing, Simmons. All you can do is redirect it. You and me isn't as interesting as you and Wash, so they'll leave you alone about it. Mostly.”

“ _I'm not fucking gay!”_ Simmons shouts and his pulse pounds behind his eyes with the force of his humiliation. He can just hear it now, if anybody knew the truth, _why_ did Grif have to do something like _this_ to fix the problem? Sure, they'd never given a shit about the jokes Sarge made, or the implications from the other soldiers or general observers or...most people who commented on their relationship, but that's because it was all just stupid macho military ribbing, right? It's just what guys do. It didn't mean anything before.

If this gets out, if people start talking about _them-_ Even when there _is_ no them, it'll mean something. Nasty jokes become nasty _comments,_ laughter turns into violence. Simmons knows where this goes. He went to a conservative school and half a dozen kids had to transfer out over this sort of thing. He knows that the good that could come from this doesn't exist, why doesn't Grif _understand_ that he grew up an anomaly? That he and Kaikaina are the weird ones, not Simmons?

“You know, I'm into dudes.”

All the wind Simmons had been building up to tell Grif just how _wrong_ he is gusts out of him. “ _What?_ ”

Grif is watching him with that sharp-edged look again, that focus Grif uses to get to the root of people because knowing how others tick is what he does to avoid being used by them. It took Simmons years to figure that out. He doesn't want to think about how much Grif figured out about _him_ in that time. “I'm into pretty much anything. Doesn't matter to me.”

Simmons can feel his mouth flapping as he searches for an answer so he closes it, jaw tight, to give him a moment to think. Grif, for his part, just rummages around until he finds the electric cigarette Simmons had gotten him to help keep him from smoking. Simmons had thought he'd thrown it away, or lost it or something. Didn't think he actually used it. “What's that got to do with this?” Simmons finally asks, and he settles down to sit next to Grif, legs up and elbows on his knees, feeling a weird mix between terrified to talk and comfortable. Grif does that to him a lot.

“You get too scared about this shit,” Grif mutters, and doesn't look at him. He chews on the plastic filter, eyes tightening. “You think shit's gonna happen that won't happen. Everybody already thinks we're dating. I'm just getting them to leave you alone.”

“I don't want people thinking stuff about me that's not true,” Simmons argues.

“People are always gonna think shit about other people that's not true.” Grif breathes out a cloud of vapor and Simmons looks at him, really looks. The way the stubble always clings to his face even when he gets around to shaving, looks at the tired lines around his eyes that've been there as long as Simmons has known him. Simmons knows some things: he knows that Grif is the one who looked after his sister, was responsible for them more or less. He knows Grif never knew his dad, knows that Grif's mother was there and then not on again and off again. He knows Grif downplays how hard he worked to keep himself and Kaikaina together when CPS finally caught up to them.

He knows that when it comes down to it, Grif is the one who cares the most about the people he accepts into his life. Knows that Grif would absolutely drive into a fire for him some day, if he ever needed it. That's not the part that worries him; what worries him is that one day, if this war keeps going on the way it has been, Simmons might need him to.

“I guess it's not the worst thing people could think,” Simmons says, and he's glad for his helmet to hide how his face burns. It's so embarrassing. He's pathetic, for clinging to this, for allowing himself this lie. He's not an idiot; he's asked himself a lot of questions ever since he figured out that how he felt about Grif was regrettably different from allies or best friends or foxhole buddies. He just didn't want to ever have to _answer_ those questions, but this? If this is just a result of Grif doing whatever he does?

Maybe he can put it off for a little while longer. Just long enough to think. That's all he needs, room to think. “I mean, if people already think we're dating, who fucking cares, right? Let a few more think it.”

Grif's expression isn't happy or satisfied, but he shrugs and leans back against the building all the same. “S'what I was saying. About goddamn time you caught up with the rest of the class, nerd.”

“Shut up.”

 

* * *

 

There’s a lot more moving involved, Grif realizes belatedly, in _actual_ firefights.

Before, in Blood Gulch, all the Reds and Blues did was stand in the same place and fire at each other (or more accurately, at each other’s cover). Sometimes they’d pop out of cover. Sometimes they would go on ridiculous adventures that involved twenty times the talking and zero shooting. He remembers when they’d stormed O’Malley’s base with that windmill thing, how pissed of Tex kept getting because they’d find cover, squat in it and just fire from there until their cover was compromised. Rinse and repeat, and you have the Grif standard operations procedure right there.

But apparently when the fight is against competent soldiers, a lot more moving around happens. Is _supposed_ to happen. Staying in the same cover the whole time is called ‘getting pinned down’ and that means that your squad’s gonna die soon without backup or something changing. Grif had known that, in theory. Rather, Simmons knew that and had probably regurgitated it from a manual at some point before common sense won over and he decided to stay with Grif in the relative safety of cover instead of throwing himself into a hail of bullets like Tex and Sarge loved to do.

This is years later though. And now instead of Grif being ordered to his likely demise, he’s crouched here with his own gaggle of stupid kids staring at him and waiting for him to get them out of this mess, like _he_ knows how to actually win a firefight against real soldiers.

Well- okay. They’re definitely not going to out-shoot these guys, so what else can they do? It’s just grass and trees and a fuckton of rocks teetering on the cliffs above, just like his _first_ shitty assignment. Back in Blood Gulch, the most dangerous thing in the canyon had been the goddamn rockslides. Nevermind the stupid Blues rolling up once in a while, just patrolling the perimeter had been an exercise in self-preserv-

Wait.

Grif switches over to the team frequency. “I’m stepping out for a minute.”

 _ **What**_ _,_ squawks some Fed trooper whose name Grif doesn’t remember yet. _Sir, you can’t just_ _ **leave!**_ _Where are you even going?_

“Uh, I believe that’s none of your business, because I’m a Captain and we officers do mysterious shit sometimes. Just stay here, y’know, hold down the fort. And like, distract them so I don’t get shot when I go.”

 _Distract them_ _ **how?**_ Bitters snaps. _We don’t even have anything because_ _ **somebody**_ _took all the grenades out of our payload to make room for more rations._

“God, I don’t care what you do! Just do something stupid, stupid’s always distracting. Trash talk and shit.”

By the time he shuffles off his squad still doesn’t get it. It’s composed mostly of News, with a few Feds mixed into the ranks in the effort to start merging the two armies in practice instead of just on paper. The Feds aren’t particularly fond of him but Grif doesn’t really give a fuck if they like him or not. He’s used to not being liked, that’s comfortable. It’s Matthews’ endless worshiping that gets on his-

“Hey, uh! I heard your mom’s gay!”

Halfway to his next cover, Grif slaps a hand over his visor.

There’s a pause in fire and then one of the mercs snaps back, “My mothers _are_ gay, you got a problem with that?!”

“Oh shit! Uh no, I don’t have a problem with moms being- y’know, being gay, or like. You know, les…bonic. Appreciators of the- of the female um, persuasion-”

“Oh my god, Matthews,” Bitters mutters.

Grif continues along the ridge on his belly, praying the scrape of his armor isn’t as loud down there as it is to his ears, because it’s fucking loud. It’s like he’s excavating the mountainside. Any second they’re going to look up and spot him and turn him into orange swiss cheese.

“Get the fuck out here, you little bitch! _Now_ I’ll pound your face in because it’s _personal!_ ”

“Rodriguez, calm down.”

“Shut up Darvish! What year is this, and we’ve still got this intolerant bullshit going on!”

 _Rodriguez down there might be planet-murdering scum, but at least he’s not a bigot,_ Grif reflects as he wedges himself between the biggest teetering bolder he can find and the cliff wall, bunching up his legs and pushing with all his might. The boulder budges with a deafening groan that likewise, somehow, goes unnoticed. Raging against social injustice must be an excellent distraction.

“I-I’m not intolerant, I swear! It’s just the first thing that popped in my head! I’m really bad at trash talk!”

Another merc pipes up. “Calling someone's mom gay is trash talk? So what, so being gay’s an _insult_ to you now?”

“Oh that fuckin’ does it,” Rodriguez grunts, and Grif can see around the boulder as the merc reaches for the grenades on his belt. He strains, thinks he probably busts a vein in his brain under the pressure but the rock gives way all at once and topples over the edge. There’s a flurry of shouts and a deafening clatter as the boulder knocks down half the cliffside on the way, kicking up dust and burying the merc half of the battlefield in dirt and debris and burnt orange clay.

Grif pulls himself up to the edge of the cliff and stares as the dust settles. His soldiers pop out of cover one by one, coughing and gaping at the results of the rockslide just feet from their position. Grif sighs in relief and drapes over the edge of the outcrop, head hanging down in exhaustion. “Holy shit, I can’t believe that worked.”

“Sir! Did you plan that?! That was amazing!” Matthews is already up and attempting to scramble over the broken and crumbling rocks to Grif’s position.

Good god. There’s no way he was ever this stupid. Not even fresh out of basic was he ever this stupid. “ _Matthews!_ Did I tell you to come up here? Get back to your position and make sure those assholes are actually dead!”

Matthews squeaks and about-faces so abruptly that he falls and bounces halfway back down.

“And the rest of you pricks? I’ll notice that Matthews is the _only one_ who followed my orders to distract the enemy. I want you to know that I'm disappointed in all of you, and that you suck.” Grif can feel his voice picking up and he firmly, as much as possible, squashes the urge to shout back down. _I will not be a Sarge._ But they still need to get it, so next time he doesn’t have to do this stupid bullshit to save the day. God, he probably slipped a disk or something. Maybe if he tells them that, they’ll carry him back to the Pelican.

Instead of guilting them Grif just _orders_ his squad to carry him back and he waits until they’re up in the air and recovered before bringing it up. “So you’re all aware, I don’t believe in that ‘sacrifice yourself for the greater cause,’ bullshit.”

All helmets turn in his direction, a few tilted curiously.

“I know that’s something that a lot of you probably follow. Big huge theme in basic to beat the desire to live out of you, super popular trope in civil war movies but just so you know? That’s not how I run my unit. Got it?”

“Not really,” Bitters says.

“I’m not gonna give you guys orders that’ll get you killed.” Grif looks between them, uncomfortable with the honesty of what he’s saying but maybe just if he says it this once they’ll get it and leave him alone with their stupid idiot bullshit and do what he says without all the backtalk. “If it comes down to mission success or us leaving alive, I’m gonna order you all to bail. If that’s not how you wanna do things then you should probably put in a transfer request, ‘cause that’s never gonna change.”

The Fed soldier from before fidgets, leans forward with her elbows on her knees. “Sir, _why?_ Mission success- that’s top priority, isn’t it?”

Grif shrugs his shoulders and leans back. “Not for me.” He pops his helmet seals and drops it onto his lap, fishing out his crumpled cigarettes and battered lighter. “Anybody here mind if I smoke?”

“Um, I have asthma-”

“Better keep your helmet on then,” Grif drawls and takes a long, comfortable, satisfying drag. The rest of the flight back is poised and quiet, with just the muffled roar of Pelican engines and the clank of armor buffeted against harnesses to keep Gold Team company.

 

* * *

 

They're walking past the barracks when Grif suddenly shouts and throws an elbow into his stomach so hard Simmons doubles over. “What the fuck,” he wheezes, clutching at his gut and shoving Grif as hard as he can in his incapacitated state.

“I knew it. _Holy shit I knew it,_ ” Grif says gleefully, and Simmons looks up just in time to see Tucker flipping them the bird as he saunters off, Wash staring at them red-faced and shifty, like he'd been caught-

_Oh my god._

“Please don't tell me,” Simmons moans pitifully, straightening up as Wash seems to make up his mind finally and marches over toward them, glancing around for eavesdroppers. There's no way. Not Agent Washington, the illustrious leader of the Blue Army (who is sort of a dick honestly, but Simmons figures he's just keeping with tradition). There's no way a guy that capable would lower himself to be with someone like _Lavernius Tucker._

“It's not what you think,” Wash opens up with.

“What do we think it is?” Grif asks innocently, way too into this. Simmons shifts his weight awkwardly, unwilling to get involved because when Wash gets pissed he gets revenge, and revenge usually consists of drills upon drills like wind sprints and push-ups, and he doesn't let Simmons get away with girly pushups or girly laps (he even insists there _is_ no such thing as girly laps, which is obviously a lie).

“It- No.” Wash's face gets that scrunched look that means he's trying to be firm, but honestly just makes him look like he's constipated. Simmons can't find him respectable when he looks constipated. “There's nothing- we're not involved. It's not what it looks like.”

“Really? 'Cause judging by your hair, it looks like you guys fucked.”

Washington's hands fly up to hold down his hair. Simmons kind of finds it hilarious, given all the hell Washington gives them during training every time but then again this also sits wrong in his gut, burns in a way that isn't funny. Maybe he's projecting. Maybe instead of seeing a guy with bottle-blond hair and slate-gray eyes he sees himself, questionable ethnic heritage and ten pounds of social anxiety wrapped up in an inability to express himself when cornered.

He feels like a bully and it doesn't feel good. Which is weird because usually he likes it.

Simmons grabs onto Grif's arm with a sigh. “Come _on._ They're going to stop serving breakfast soon.”

That at least can always get Grif moving, though he grumbles on the way and shoots Simmons a weird look. “What's up with _you?_ I thought you'd be all over that. The topic I mean, not Wash looking all casually rumpled-”

“Shut up,” Simmons mutters. “It- it just wasn't something I wanted to do, all right?”

Grif watches Simmons for a while longer and Simmons ignores it until he stops.

 

* * *

 

Grif doesn't tend to keep up with what other people do, because then they expect him to remember and ask after their activities and shit. Donut especially is guilty of this, telling Grif something something about decorating somewhere with whatever colors, and when Grif doesn't ask about how it turned out he shows up unannounced and forces interaction onto him.

“I cannot believe you didn't tell me you and Simmons were going out!” Donut rests his chin in his hand and sighs, spinning his spoon around in his stew. “I thought we were family.”

“We're family,” Grif grunts around his mouthful of banana, “we're just like the kind of extended family that hardly acknowledges each other, the kind that don't talk or hang out or want to have anything to do with each other.”

“Grif! That's just not true. I want to know about your life.”

“I was talking about me.” When Donut doesn't answer Grif finally looks up from his food and- oh no. Oh no, he looks thoughtful. With Donut that's never a good thing, largely because he's a fluffy little moron. “Whatever you're doing, please don't.”

“I'm not doing anything!”

“ _Do not_ ask Simmons about this,” Grif threatens, not sure why he's bothering to protect that twat in the first place. He should be _siccing_ Donut on Simmons, innuendos and all. Get him accustomed to the idea of dudes sucking dicks so he'll stop being a fucking moron already. Then again, if years of living with Donut doesn't get him used to it then he might never get there.

...that idea is more depressing than Grif thought it would be.

Donut mimes locking his lips shut about the same time Wash sits down at their table with them. Grif gives him a look, wondering when Wash began to think he was part of their crew before reaching the conclusion that he really doesn't care all that much. The guy looks like a mess anyway. “What's wrong with you?” Too late does he understand what he just did, which was invite somebody to talk about their troubles with him in front of Donut. He's fine asking Wash because Wash won't tell him; Donut, however, is staring at him wide-eyed and hopeful.

“Nothing,” Wash says, as expected, but that's about when Tucker makes himself known by slamming his tray down on the table across from Wash.

“Wash, what the hell?” He sits down and the table rattles with the force of it, because he's still in half of his armor. Donut steadies his bowl absently and Grif eyeballs it. If it spills, he's going for it, there is _not_ enough food on his tray to keep him going. “Are you trying to get rid of me? Jesus, you're such a fucking wimp.”

“Oh wow,” Donut murmurs and he shoves his tray aside, which honestly is legal abandonment so Grif helps himself. Tucker and Wash can have their dumb little lovers' spat over there all they like if it means it'll keep Donut's attention off of him and his fake relationship with Simmons. He's not really paying attention because it's more of the same, bicker bicker back and forth, all nasty snotty tones and whining and god, Blue Team is full of such dramatic little whiners when Tucker both draws a line and crosses it in the same breath.

Now, Grif doesn't mind Tucker. He dislikes things about him on the same principle as the things he dislikes about Donut, in that they both have sex on the brain all the time even if Donut swears up and down he's not doing it on purpose. Tucker, however, is at least not an idiot, and can talk about other things once in a while so he's at least good for complaining with. But this:

“I dunno, maybe you can't talk around your mouth full of my _dick.”_

Even Donut gets it. They exchange glances, Donut's hand over his mouth, and Grif feels like he has an obligation to inform him of his massive fuckup, “Oh dude, you are so fucking dead.”

Wash must have had parting one-liners training in the Project because he burn he leaves Tucker with is probably enough to re-roast Grif's potatoes. Grif chews slowly, eyeballing Tucker where he sits with his fists against the table, glaring down at his tray.

“...are you gonna eat that?”

“Get bent, Grif!” Tucker snaps before he jumps up and storms off also.

Grif pulls Tucker's tray over to him also.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, how come you're not with Carolina anymore?”

“Oh Jesus Christ, please don't become interested in my life. I don't think I could stand knowing you give a fuck.”

“God, you're mean,” Simmons mutters as he returns his attention to the console. He hadn't realized that he wouldn't be able to perform the reorganization in the comfort of his own quarters when he'd offered; what about inventory counts could possibly be considered _top secret?_ Apparently it was so important that he even had to go directly to Doyle and get his name added to the project clearance code, which was a little much in his opinion. What the hell would Felix and Locus do with _inventory counts?_ Make sure to cut off the supplies that they're not even fucking receiving?

It takes a little time to get some traction but Simmons finds his groove and really gets into regrouping. There's something about tasks like this, putting order to chaos, watching your work slot evenly into where it should be that he finds deeply satisfying. Other people might call it nerdy or unglamorous and sure, they're probably right, but this sort of decimal-counting is what forms the basis of every structured society.

“You're not sulking, are you?”

Damn it. “What? No. You told me not to talk to you.”

“Yeah but then you got all quiet! You're supposed to keep talking after that!”

“I called you mean?” Simmons adds another subcategory to the perishables list. “I don't know what your problem is. You hate talking to people.”

“No, I hate talking to _stupid_ people. Which now that you mention it, _is_ a label that applies to pretty much everybody I know considering the _dumb fucking questions_ I have to put up with on a day-to-day bas-”

God, if he lets Church really get going with the insults it'll never stop. “Okay, so why don't you tell me what you're working on then?”

“Ughh, of course _you_ want to talk shop.”

“Wh-what the hell does _that_ mean, 'of course _I_ want-'”

Church makes a rude sound and Simmons really wishes he'd project an avatar so he could have something to look at. It's like talking to a perpetually irate ghost, although that probably also fits the bill considering how long they all thought he'd _been_ a ghost. Or Alpha had been a ghost. Or. Something.

“Hey! Don't zone out when I'm answering your question!”

“Sorry, sorry- hey, could you um, could you make an avatar? Or project something? This is really weird, just talking to nothing.”

“Simmons, are you equating me in my natural state to _nothing?_ ”

 _This is why I wanted to do this in my quarters,_ Simmons thinks desperately. Of everyone on Blue Team, Church is the hardest to get along with. Caboose might be an annoying weirdo and Tucker might be a pervert, but Church is quick and he's _mean_ and Simmons hates being around him whenever there's work to be done just because he's such an asshole about literally everything. It's like having a Grif around who specifically goes for his jugular every goddamn time. “It's weird, yeah.”

Church makes that sound again, but at least he projects a little avatar around Simmons's shoulder that is pointedly giving him the finger. “There. Better?”

Simmons returns his attention to his work.

“Anyway, what I was _saying_ is that I was analyzing the data your boyfriend picked up on his last mission-”

Simmons chokes at the obvious problem in the sentence, pounding on his chest. He doesn't even know what he choked on. His horror at the fact that _Church_ somehow caught wind of that rumor, probably. “G-Grif and I are _not_ boyfriends!”

“Oh ho, you knew exactly who I was talking about though.”

“ _Who else would you be talking about?_ ”

“Well according to the rumors it _could_ be Wash-”

“Oh my god.”

“-but no, it's the fat boyfriend. You two-timing hussy.”

Simmons drops his helmet into his hands.

Church sounds far too gleeful as he continues, “Found something weird in the troop reassignments they brought back. Thought you might like to take a look at them. Mathematically they make plenty of sense, but something seems weird. Wanna put your faulty organic brain to the test?”

Is it even worth it to pursue the previous topic of conversation? Probably not. AIs think so quickly, he'd probably just yell about letting go of the past. “Why are you even asking? I'm not looking at it just so you can be a dick to me when I don't find anything.”

“Holy shit, you're so insecure.” Church's avatar fritzes for a split second. “There, I sent it to your personal portal. Just look at it whenever, forward your conclusions to the generals. You big baby. _And_ now I'm done babysitting your lack of self-esteem, so entertain yourself for a while, all right?”

“You did literally no babysitting of my self-esteem!” Simmons shouts as Church vanishes, but he doesn't know if he heard it. Or even cares.

Shit, all he wants to do is do a good job and get noticed for it. Why does he have to interact with other people to accomplish that? There should be a position in the army that involves absolutely no talking to anybody ever, so he can just rise up in the ranks and keep the human interaction to the barest minimum he can manage.

It's not until he's back in his quarters and looking at the field data that he realizes the job he wants so desperately belongs to Church. And then his train of thought takes him to _well who would I implant into?_ There's no good answer for that. Nothing that doesn't either make him sound pathetic or like a creep, except for the ideas that he _hates._ Implanting into anybody he knows is a hard no, absolutely no, never in a trillion years. Implanting into a total stranger feels even worse.

He contemplates implanting into Grif if he had no other choice before vetoing _that_ idea. He doesn't want to be trapped in Grif's armor alongside him, he's seen what that mess looks like.

_Why do they keep transferring troops into and out of that one place?_

Then again, it might not be _horrible._ He'd finally get a front-row seat to Grif's thought process, he might actually figure something out about him. About why Grif doesn't ever fucking _try_ with anything. Simmons can't believe that it's seriously just plain laziness, that he's just so adamantly against doing _anything,_ not when Grif turns around and volunteers for suicide missions and shit. Could it be stupidity? Grif just doesn't actually know _how_ to succeed? No, no, he's around Simmons every single day, he must've picked up some of his ambition here and there.

_It's not a strategically remarkable location. It has double the reassignments that all of the other known bases have. It doesn't make sense._

In fact, a lot of what Grif does doesn't make any sense. It's not like he _can't_ do things. Simmons isn't in the best of shape, he'll admit it now, but that's more because he has a regrettably natural inclination toward weakness. Grif is built almost as solidly as Caboose, except he's just also fat. But Simmons has seen the guy haul ass when he thought he was being chased by bats, and that's a lot of ass to haul. Maybe the double-chin thing is genetic? Is it a Hawaiian thing? Grif never said what his dad was, but his mom was definitely Hawaiian and he looks pretty Hawaiian. Oh geez, is Simmons developing a creepy race fetish by thinking about this? He's not, is he? It's not gross to think Grif's eyes are kind of nice, or to think that his hair is nice when he washes it. It's not like Simmons has a magazine specifically of Hawaiians that he jerks off to.

_Nobody would move troops around that much if they're trying to keep a low profile. There's no point in reassigning men unless there's insubordination, and Charon made it clear they only employ the best._

Simmons has the heel of his hand pressed against the crotch of his fatigues before he realizes it. He snatches his hand away but it's too late, it's already too late. He's thinking about what Grif's laugh sounds like, the _actual_ one where he throws his head back and grabs his chest. Simmons thinks he's probably the only one who's heard it actually, the only one who's heard it more than once for sure. It's because when they really get into watching that trashy sci-fi that Grif loves so much, Simmons gets his snark on and mocks the shit out of the dialogue, and Grif is the type of person who can laugh at what he loves.

_You nerd._

No. _Nope._ Not going to get his hopes up.

_I'm into pretty much anything. Doesn't matter to me._

Grif absolutely wouldn't be interested in him. They've been together for years, and Grif's never tried to do anything. He'd have tried to do something by now, right?

_People are always gonna think shit about other people that's not true._

“I'm an idiot,” Simmons whispers, tilting his head back against his pillow. The tablet rests atop his chest, Charon's reassignment orders glowing against his shirt. His human hand is rubbing against his crotch again, finding the line of his hardening cock, pressing up-down along it slowly, lazily, how he imagines someone else would to it (how he imagines _Grif_ would do it). He'd only seen Grif make an effort for his appearance two times, because he didn't have a choice: once was when they went to Vegas quadrant, and the place he wanted to get into had a dress code. The other was when they were getting ready for the press conference before the photo with Hargrove, and the photographers had specifically requested photos with their helmets off so they could see their faces. With Sarge standing behind him, shotgun at the ready, Grif had combed his messy hair back and pulled it into a ponytail, at least trimmed his beard down into something less scraggly and Simmons hadn't been able to look at him for ages without thinking, _he cleans up nice._

He used to think that wasn't much, just a comb and a trim. Damn Grif for lowering his standards.

Simmons presses the tablet against his chest as he arches his hips up, rubs the curve of his dick straining against his zipper, bites his lips against making the sounds he think would probably kill him if anybody else ever heard. He doesn't know what he sounds like during sex. Grif had been right, he's a virgin, _at his age._ Grif would probably laugh if he knew, laugh and go, _guess I don't have anything to live up to then, huh?_ Grif would be glad to know Simmons wouldn't have an expectations, would take his time pulling Simmons's zipper down, would ignore Simmons snapping at him to hurry up as he slides a hand down into Simmons's underwear.

_Fuck._

“Fuck,” Simmons gasps aloud, sweat sticking the edges of his hair to his skin. His internal cooling fans kick on and the soft _whrrrr_ of them blends into everything, into the idea of Grif pressing his lips against the cool metal of his chest, his shoulder, along the edges where it meets his skin. He used to hate the way it looked; always thought being a cyborg would look cooler, would be smoother. He didn't think about scar tissue or stitch marks that won't fade, but Grif has that too. He has patches of skin that have darkened a little but not completely, he has spots on his face and chest that burn instead of tan. He has a Y-shaped scar where Sarge had cracked open his ribs and sewed inside of him half of Simmons.

Would Grif touch him with his own hand, or the one Simmons gave him?

“Oh _god,_ ” Simmons whimpers and the head of his dick is so wet when he rubs his thumb over it. He arches up into his grip, pumps into his own fist instead of pulling his fist along his cock, pictures Grif there alongside him, watching Simmons jerk himself off, sliding big palms over Simmons's gut and paying no attention to where skin ends and metal begins, _I'm into pretty much anything,_ Grif'd whisper in his ear and Simmons stutters, stammers, curls his toes in his socks as he comes up onto his arm, his shirt, the back of his tablet and it's disgusting, filthy, Grif would _love_ it, might even lick it off his skin, _waste not want not, Simmons,_ and it rolls up again, surges harder and Simmons grits his teeth and slams his head back against his pillow as his orgasm soars higher, crests and crashes before it breaks like a wave on the beach, _Grif loves the beach,_ lets him drift down slow like flotsam and he lays there boneless, mindless, empty, satisfied to lay there and _be._

...his tablet has jizz on it. “Ugh,” Simmons groans, rolls over onto his side and reaches under his bed for a pack of tissues. Plucks a few out, wipes himself down, wipes off his tablet before tucking himself back into his pants with a blush so fierce he's afraid his components might overheat and swings himself out of bed and onto unsteady legs.

He'd never let himself think of Grif like that before.

Simmons fishes around for the bottle of rubbing alcohol to properly clean up his tablet, glancing down to make sure he didn't get anything on the screen when it hits him that _I've seen this tactic used before._ The basic training manuals hadn't had anything in them other than the bare information necessary for survival, but Simmons had been aiming for a promotion from the very start and he made use of his time grabbing any book on military tactics he could find and memorizing it. The colonization skirmishes in the _Tyr-Hammond_ star system had employed the use of an old WWII coding system that was so obvious, AI decoders often overlooked it as nonsensical trash data.

The erratic troop reassignments, they aren't to move soldiers in an out of a specific location. They're _coded deployment orders._

The only question is, deployment to _where?_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> youre gotdam right these are all cosmo headlines
> 
> also s/o to [PlayerProphet](http://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayerProphet/pseuds/PlayerProphet) for the idea of grif being totes invested in tuckington in his own weird way!!! (that was you right i think it was you, please correct me if i'm wrong)


	2. Making Out Is Cool Again

****"I knew that. Yeah I knew- I saw that, I just wanted to throw Simmons a bone.”

Washington scoffs.

“This is a good catch,” Carolina murmurs.

“It is.” Doyle nods and turns to Simmons, holding out a hand.

Simmons stares at it.

“Erm.” Doyle glances at Washington, who nods encouragingly and waves him on. He turns back to Simmons and presses his hand a little closer. “You have my gratitude, my good man. This information could be vital to our survival.”

“I mean, I _did_ see it. I really did, that's why I told Simmons to look at it. 'Cause I knew something was up.”

“Epsilon shut up,” Carolina sighs.

“I'm just saying, I did.”

“Uh.” Simmons takes Doyle's hand hesitantly, then more enthusiastically, then _too_ enthusiastically with both hands and pumping their arms up and down. “Thank- thank you sir! Thanks! I just- you know, I just- I'd seen it somewhere before, and I just recognized the patterns is all. I guess it was probably impressive, I doubt a lot of people know the history behind it, otherwise they wouldn't use it- I mean it's pretty obvious Church didn't-”

“ _Simmons_ I will rig your goddamn alarm to blare Rebecca Black-”

“Er, yes, well, as I said: good work.” Doyle extracts himself from Simmons, rubbing his abused wrist. “Even if we don't know to exactly where this is referring, we can still assume they're using similar coding patterns for their other encrypted messages. We should revisit all the intel we've gathered thus far and look for the same patterns.”

“Our time would be better spent focusing on this single transmission,” Kimball argues, waving a hand. “This intel is relevant _now,_ there's no point in digging up intercepted transmissions from ages ago when we should be figuring out Charon's _next_ move.”

“Ms. Kimball, I understand that you're not accustomed to _understanding_ your enemy-”

“Oh my god, we are _not_ starting that again-”

Simmons tunes out as the generals start up their customary bickering. It's pretty easy; he got a lot of practice in with his parents.

...Except that Washington is staring, staring at Simmons and oh god, please don’t let him _still_ think that Simmons has a thing for him. Just wanting to impress someone doesn’t mean you want to ride their dick! Or anything like that! And now Simmons has thought about riding dicks and that makes him feel uncomfortable for a thousand different reasons that he wouldn’t even be able to catalogue with an entire psychological _library-_

“Simmons,” Wash says suddenly, and Simmons jumps.

“ _What!_ Yes! I’m listening!”

Wash tilts his head. “Relax. I’m just curious about what you saw in the orders that made you notice.”

“Oh.” The conversation between the generals, Epsilon and Carolina behind him continues on as he steps closer to the false relocation orders. “D’you see here, and here? The name repeats in weird places. It’s almost mathematical, except that it’s off once in a while.” Well, if it was _strictly_ mathematical then Church would’ve picked it up. Simmons can definitely sympathize with people who do that whole ‘down with robots’ business, even if they’re mostly uneducated hicks in farming colonies who hate robots for being able to lift a thousand pounds over their heads. Simmons just hates someone being way better at what he’s good at. He doesn’t have much, god damn it, let him have his rapid-recall multiplication tables!

Wash is still staring.

“Um.” Simmons shifts his weight then figures, why the fuck not. Wash has held him _prisoner,_ he’s kind of already seen him at his worst. “Okay, so, the repeating name? I think it’s fake; I think it’s an indication of a place.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s- it says Sinharaja.” At Wash’s lack of comprehension Simmons insists, “That’s the last naturally preserved rainforest on Earth. In Sri Lanka. All the others have had gene modeling done. It just seems weird to have such a unique name, unless it’s a fake. Which I mean, it could be fake, but why have a fake name on your own relocation orders unless you’re hiding something else?”

“Did you say rainforest?”

Simmons jumps when Kimball just _appears_ at his shoulder. “Yeah, yes- yeah. Sinharaja’s a rainforest.”

Kimball stares at the orders, then across the table at Doyle. “Didn’t the Federal Army hold a watchtower in a rainforest southwest of here?”

“I believe so…” Doyle folds his arms, head tilting. “It was before I was, erm, _promoted_ but if I recall correctly, the watchtower was abandoned as its strategic value was deemed negligible.”

Carolina leans into Kimball's space, staring into her visor and Simmons suddenly gets a feeling of some _thing_ that he's supposed to have seen. “Church, can you pull up the location for us?”

“Way ahead of you.” A holographic map pops up above the table, a red carrot floating above a rainforest with the marker 'WATCHTOWER.' Church's avatar paces above the forest, arms folded. “The watchtower might not be that important by itself, but look what it's between; an old Fed weapons cache and an old access tunnel to the New Republic's underground operations. Well, _previous_ underground operations.”

“Those tunnels span for miles, and they're difficult to traverse if you don't know the inside of them,” Kimball says grimly. “Which Felix does, of course. They could hide out right beneath our noses for weeks and we'd be none the wiser.”

“Right.” Church nods. “And Locus would know just what's at that weapons cache.”

“There's not much,” Doyle protests, stepping closer. “Most of our ordnance has been relocated to Armonia.”

“Except for the alien tech.”

“Perhaps, but that's-” Doyle stops. “...ah.”

Kimball pushes herself up. “Shit. They use it to reverse-engineer everything else. We need to get that tech away from them any way possible, even if we have to destroy it.”

Doyle sputters. “There are priceless artifacts in there!”

“There are also _weapons_ , Doyle, weapons our enemies would be more than happy to use to annihilate us!”

“Okay, so, I'm gonna go,” Simmons says loudly. Loudly-ish. The two generals are still bickering and Church is starting to get involved, and really honestly the atmosphere has shifted from Simmons and his accomplishments so he's pretty sure he's done here. Before they ask him to pick sides.

Simmons is out the door and halfway down the hall when he finally notices he's being followed by Washington, which honestly is one of the more terrifying experiences of his life. He's constantly being shadowed by either the loudest or clumsiest soldiers alive, so glancing over his shoulder to see a guy who has and could again easily knock him out and like, imprison him somewhere is enough to make him scream and fumble his gun which _of course_ Washington catches. Good god.

There's also the thing where he's worried Wash still believes Simmons has a crush, which makes him _act_ like he has a crush all nervous-like, and then maybe he's wondering if Washington is considering beating him up behind the gym or something. Maybe not for liking him. Washington obviously doesn't have a problem with boys kissing, considering he and Tucker got biblical and that is just- no, Simmons can't even comprehend that, big buff soldier Wash making out with a tool like Tucker. Or Tucker the ladies' man making out with a dude who has like five inches and possibly thirty pounds of muscle on him.

“Thanks,” Simmons croaks instead, taking his rifle back when Washington offers it out.

“Let's take a walk,” Wash offers and Simmons considers, briefly, just dying right here.

“No, uh, I'm- I have somewhere to be, actually I'm not even supposed to be here.”

“It won't take long.” Washington starts walking and what the fuck is Simmons supposed to do? _Not_ follow him? God. He's definitely authority-whipped. It's like being pussy-whipped, but you don't get any action out of it. Simmons hates his life.

They make it to the outer walls of the city and up onto the walkway before Wash finally stops and leans against the railing, staring out at the landscape around them. So much of Chorus is uncultivated, and even the outskirts of the capital city is no exception. Dry shrubs and scraggly trees dot the orange cliffs around them and if Simmons turns up his magnification, he can see a hint of prairie meadows in a valley past the red clay ridges.

“Y'know, I was about fifteen when I first figured out I liked guys.”

“Oh no, don't do this to me,” Simmons moans. Either Washington _does_ think he still has a crush and is trying to give him some sort of pep talk, or Washington is just kind of sharing info in an effort to become closer with him. Either way, studies have shown that despite his best efforts, getting close to Agent Washington is always going to backfire somehow. Either Caboose will suddenly become the fucking General or Freckles will get downloaded into a tank and run Simmons over or maybe, the worst thing of all, Washington will look at him and realize that he's a frail, miserable, power-thirsty nerd who was shoved into a locker all his life and will never be capable of shoving other people into their own lockers.

“I'm just telling you a story,” Wash continues, like he's not single-handedly orchestrating Simmons's next neurotic meltdown. “I found out when I was fifteen and it was the worst thing that could've happened to me. I was so sure everybody would look at me and just _know,_ and that even if they didn't think anything bad they'd still be thinking about it. That they'd be able to find something wrong with it, or if that failed, something wrong with _me._ ”

It sounds familiar. It sounds _painfully_ familiar, and Simmons isn't sure how to feel about it until he remembers he and Grif catching Wash coming out of Tucker's quarters that one morning, red-faced and stammering and how he'd felt like a bully. Something washes away there, some barrier that's been between them since the start, maybe ever since Wash snapped at them about their simulation wars, about how they never get anything _done,_ and Simmons comes up beside him and leans against the railing too. “People _do_ watch for that stuff, though. So you weren't wrong.”

Washington inclines his head. “Maybe. Maybe some of them.”

Simmons waits for a follow-up. When it doesn't show he kind of feels a little jilted, but also oddly relieved. “Wait so...is that it? This wasn't some kind of 'nobody pays as much attention to you as you do' pep talk?”

“Looks like you've already got that one memorized,” Wash points out with a hint of amusement.

Simmons flushes behind his helmet because yeah, _of course_ he's got that one memorized. A painfully self-conscious kid like him? He knew that spiel by heart by the time he turned _ten._ It was the lecture of choice amongst well-meaning but emotionally distant schoolteachers. “Then what's the point of the story?”

“The point was to tell it to you.” Washington looks back out over the cliffs and the sun gleams bright burning orange off his visor. “You don't have to have an answer to everything. Sometimes you just _do_ things, you know? Maybe it turns into something later, maybe not. It just is.”

Simmons taps his fingers against the railing. “...you know, I don't have a crush on you.”

“I know.” Wash pushes back and half-turns toward the walkway. “Grif's just an ass.”

 _He knew._ Of course he knew. He's Agent Washington. Hopefully his voice isn't too obviously choked when Simmons says, “Yeah, he is.”

 

* * *

 

Not for the first time, Grif debates the merits of being friends with Simmons. Sure, that means he's never out somebody to talk to, but really, is he gonna run out of people like that here on Chorus? He's a big goddamn hero. _Everybody_ wants to talk to him. He's not stuck with a kissass and a lunatic in the hot canyon sun all day, every day, with nothing to do but bitch and come up with stupid word games to pass the time. Shit, _Carolina_ apparently thinks he's cool enough to have drinks with. If he can buddy up with Carolina, he can buddy up with goddamn near anybody.

On the other hand, if he puts himself out on the market for another conversational partner, the first person who'd probably line up (and continue lining up) is _Matthews._ No. Grif would rather shoot himself in the ass than talk to Matthews day in and day out.

The problem with being friends with Simmons, though, is that Simmons doesn't know how to hold his fucking liquor. All they had was _beer_ (okay and a little tequila), so there's no reason why Simmons can't walk his own ass back to his own damn quarters. Why is he carrying this prick? He literally has nothing to gain from making sure Simmons gets to bed. In fact, he'd probably look better if Simmons _didn't_ because then he'll be late to training tomorrow, and Grif showing up late (or not at all) won't look as bad if they're both skipping out.

Fuck, and _about that-_

“I cannot believe Sarge is in charge of our personal training,” Grif grumbles, yanking on Simmons’s arm when he stumbles again. “This is going to suck so hard. Why is he even getting involved? It's personal training for a reason, it’s supposed to be _personal!_ ”

“You don’t even do it, so that's probably why,” Simmons mutters into Grif’s shoulder.

“I know! And I like it that way, I don’t want it to change!” Simmons slips down again and Grif pulls him harder. “Carrying your drunk ass back to your room is training enough. Jesus Christ, why are you so heavy?”

“'Cause the...cyborg parts. I'm getting new parts- oh god damn it.”

Simmons’s gut gives a truly alarming gurgle and Grif ushers him over to the side of the street. “Oh my god if you puke on me I’ll leave you here, I swear.”

“You won’t,” Simmons groans, bending over a rain gutter.

“The fuck I wouldn’t, I will.”

“You won’t.”

Simmons empties all the contents of his stomach into the rain gutter and Grif has to put up with his complaining about how nasty his mouth tastes as he drags him back to the barracks. He waits outside the bathroom for Simmons to finish brushing his teeth, shushes him when Simmons shouts drunkenly into the shower stalls, “ _Simmons genki desu!_ ” and shoves him into his bed without much care or finesse.

“Sleep it off, you fucking lunatic.”

“Wait,” Simmons says, and he rolls around on his bunk until he can face Grif, thrusting out a hand after him. “Wait. Grif wait. Don’t leave me here.”

Grif scowls. “You’re in your room, you idiot.”

“So stay with me.”

Grif freezes. “…and sleep where?”

Simmons looks around before he looks down at his bunk and starts to scoot over.

“No. You-” Grif blows out an angry breath, not sure why _this_ is the one thing in the entire night that actually pisses him off. “I’m not doing this shit. You can do this sober. Good night Simmons, you fucking prick.” And he turns before he loses his nerve and leaves Simmons to sleep it off in his room, gut seething with disappointment, fists stuffed into his pockets.

Of _course_ he has to be drunk before he drops a pair and goes for it. Of course.

Asshole.

 

* * *

 

“Now, you're going to feel a slight pinch!”

“A slight pinch like- _ow!_ Mother _fucker!_ ”

Dr. Grey holds onto Simmons's wrist and works his elbow joint in and out, testing its flexibility. “Excellent! That's a good sign. If you didn't feel any pain, that means I didn't connect the nerves right and we'd have to do this _allllll_ over again!”

“I seriously don't get your criteria for what counts as excellent,” Simmons says faintly, laying back against the table. “It _hurts._ ”

“It'll fade,” the doctor breezes. She fiddles with the inside of his elbow and Simmons suppresses the desire to flinch back and away. “I really don't even know how you were functioning before. I mean, obviously your organs were working, but your limbs? What a wreck! Have you ever seen _The Wizard of Oz_?”

“Uh, with Dorothy and the lion? -wait, are you going to call me the tin man?”

“Of course not!”

“Oh. Well-”

“I was going to call you the scarecrow. Because you couldn't even really compare the structural integrity of these old things to _tin,_ honestly!”

“Thanks,” Simmons says miserably. “Now even my _fake_ muscles are pathetic.”

“That they were,” Dr. Grey muses. “ _But_ that's all in the past now! I suppose you all had to make do with what was available to you, which likely wasn't much. Or anything at all, really. In fact, most of these pieces are meant only for robotic use, so I have no idea how the Colonel managed to adapt them to your nervous system! You're lucky you don't have _horrendous, painful_ nerve scarring that renders you incapable of feeling anything!”

The ceiling swims overhead and Simmons swallows, closing his eyes. “Uh huh.”

“Okay! You'll probably feel a _touch_ of vertigo while your brain re-assimilates the nerve impulses, that's normal. Let me know if you're going to vomit!”

Dr. Grey moves along his arm testing his fingers, wrist, elbow and shoulder. She inserts what looks like a screwdriver into the joints and adjust them for tension strength and when he uncurls his fingers from a fist it feels so liquid he could cry. It's almost like a _real hand._ “I- I didn't know a prosthetic could feel like this.”

“It's just a little something I'm working on.” But the doctor seems pleased with herself and pleased that Simmons is near tears in his appreciation. “Let me show you what else is new! Hold out your hand.” She places a brick in his palm. “Now crush that.”

Simmons looks a the brick, then up at the doctor. “Uh-”

She flaps her hand encouragingly.

It takes some effort, but the brick cracks and crumbles in his hand like old cake and Simmons envisions all the great things he's going to do with this new power to destroy stone with his bare hands. Like break _more_ things with his bare hands- er, hand. Maybe find his father and just tear things apart, look him in the eye and rip a phone book in half and say, _Did you see that Dad? I did that. And I'm going to take these powers and go do more math problems for fun, because I don't have to play sports if I don't want to. I know a total badass and she has a shitty dad too, so people from all walks of life can have horrible fucking fathers and I complained about you to her and she agreed with me. Everybody agrees with me, you're horrible, but you aren't even the worst so I guess me falling short of expectations is just hereditary, isn't it?_

Shit, that's a sick burn. He should save that for if he ever sees his dad again.

“You should be able to adjust the tension here, if you rotate your shoulder?” Dr. Grey reaches behind his shoulder and touches something that makes a _click_ that reverberates all the way into his head in a really, _really_ weird way, like an extra limb. “Just move your shoulder like so and you'll be able to dial between the extremes in grip strength. Play around with it until you find something comfortable, but I wouldn't advise experimenting when becoming intimate with someone! That would _not_ be fun.”

Simmons chokes. “I wouldn't- I don't-”

“Didn't think so! Just wanted to make sure you were aware.”

“Wait, didn't think so what? Didn't think I'd be intimate with somebody? Does- do I give that impression?”

Dr. Grey sweeps her various tools into a nearby drawer kind of haphazardly, and Simmons's fingers twitch with the desire to put them to order. “ _Any_ way, just make sure you check in for maintenance periodically! These new limbs are just a _bit_ more complicated than the last ones, so I'm afraid it's not just something you can wing in your own room with a screwdriver and some elbow grease!”

“I didn't even know you were working on cyborg parts,” Simmons admits, rotating his shoulder and playing with the tension settings running up and down his arm. It feels weird, but not in a totally unwelcome way. Compared to the weight of the damn thing before this replacement and how it needed a tuneup nearly every week or it started falling apart, getting used to _extra_ features isn't much of a price to pay.

“Prosthetics, mostly!” Dr. Grey stands with him and walks with him to the door and that kind of feels nice, like this is actual _care_ instead of a slapdash bandaid and a pat on the back. “Cyborg limbs follow the same principle, of course. But I've always wanted to experiment with strength and reflex augmentation in artificial limbs for quite a while now. I'd been missing a few key elements, but studying Captain Caboose's muscle fiber structure actually cleared quite a few things up. So if you have anybody to thank for your upgrades, it'd be him!”

Simmons doesn't want to begin wrapping his mind around thanking _Caboose_ for his super awesome robot powers, so he shelves that thought to ponder obsessively later before ultimately dismissing the idea. They make it to the door and Dr. Grey makes a motion like she's about to shut the door in his face when Simmons stops, leans back in and taps at the solid plate of his shoulder cuff. “What about this? It looks like I'm wearing armor.”

“Oh that? That's just to protect you from various projectiles! I'm aiming to make bullet-proof plating the new field standard with prosthetics. After all, what better way to get back into the fight than to return even better than before?” Dr. Grey gives him a smile that's all sugar and incredibly intimidating, tilting her head and reaching for the keypad. “ _Now_ if you'll excuse me!”

“Right, thank-” The door swishes shut in his face and Simmons bites his lips. “...you. Okay. I'll just leave! It's all right. If I have any questions I'll, um, I'll just message you? Or call you? I could drop by...” When Dr. Grey doesn't answer, Simmons takes it as his cue to get lost already.

He'd been hoping to make it back to his room and into his armor before running into anybody, since he's in a tank top and shorts and sandals like some kind of California frat boy reject, but the world is not that kind to Simmons and he instead runs directly into Jensen, literally. “Oops- sorry, I'm thinking about stuff. Sorry.”

“Captain Simmons! Sorry, I-” Her eyes snap over to look at his arm before looking back up at him, mouth open in shock. “Is that a new arm?! Oh my god! It looks so wicked!”

Is he old? Is that why he feels so pleased about having some young-ish person call his arm wicked? Or is it because he's pretty sure that before his cyborg parts were likened more to bits of trash than anything to be _admired?_ Maybe it's because Jensen is a girl. Although recent private activities have shown him that apparently he's more into overweight walking pigsties than cute girls. Or maybe he's like Grif? Maybe he's into both? Maybe he's bisexual? That's nice, having a label for it. Makes him feel validated.

...Jensen is trying to have a discussion with him. Right. “It does? I mean, yeah, doesn't it?” He rolls his shoulder and it barely clicks, just makes this _awesome_ whirring noise that's all smooth mechanics and self-lubricating ball joints. “Dr. Grey just installed it. I can crush bricks now.”

“ _What._ ” Jensen grabs onto his flesh arm and Simmons nearly jumps out of his skin. “Captain, you _have_ to come show the others.”

“What? I don't- What?”

'The others' just means the other soldiers in his squad (all girls, even the Feds, now Simmons _knows_ he's being ridiculed by the Generals) who apparently are all friends with each other too. _Even the Feds._ Maybe it's because they're girls? No, no that might be sexist. Or not sexist? Is it sexist if he thinks they're _better_ than guys because they're girls?

Simmons knows his face is beet red when his squad gathers round to look at his arm, _oooh_ ing and _aahh_ ing in their cute girl voices, asking to _touch his arm_ and stuff like that and sure, hahaha, why not? It's just, y'know, a little touching between privates and their captain- oh god, that sounds like a court martial in the making.

“Break something!” shouts Yasmin, who's always been a little violent and kind of reminds Simmons of a young Sarge. If Sarge was a chick. And Turkish.

Simmons punches through a bunch of busted steel paneling and rips a rebar out of a cracked concrete wall while his squad cheers and claps and he's never felt cooler in his life.

 

* * *

 

It's the little things that set a guy off.

When he was first told, he didn't believe it. He still doesn't believe it, honestly; it's just too improbable. It's a thing that happens to other people, people who aren't him, who don't have indestructible sisters. Even when the UNSC tried to offer condolences at the whole Hargrove thing, Grif had just about-faced and left before they could pass over whatever medal or ribbon or certificate or whatever gets handed to people in the army when they think your relatives are dead for no reason.

How many times did one of them almost die in that canyon without them fucking noticing? And they expect Grif to believe they'd noticed _now?_ No, what likely happened was that Kai took a bunch of shit, passed out, some soldier wandering by saw her lying out in the middle of the canyon and assumed she was dead. Then they wandered off again because nobody cares about the sim troopers and she got up, drank some water (and probably also rubbing alcohol) and then left. It's what she _does._ She _drifts,_ like their mother, as much as she hates it when he brings it up. It's why he made the rule. No body, no death.

But sometimes it's hard.

Sometimes he sees one of these dumb kids and is reminded of her when they talk about 'that sick party downtown the other night' that probably wasn't all that sick, was probably just a bunch of losers with a stereo system and some warm beer, but everybody was hopped up on LSD or Angel Dust or whatever the fuck kids take these days. Then the kid would sound like her, would move like her, and Grif has to turn away before he gets sick to his stomach.

He told her. He _goddamn told her_ not to join the army. She never fucking does what she's told.

Sometimes it gets worse than just being reminded. On really bad days, on days when he sees a soldier come back with her cheek blown out from a stray sniper shot, sometimes he sees long frizzy hair just barely pulled back in a ponytail attached to a body being zipped up in a bag and he has to turn and march away, has to wrench his helmet off when it gets too hot inside. It's times like these he wishes he had her picture, could carry it around with him like Tucker has Junior, so he could look at her face and see it without his imagination slapping blood all over it or sucking the life out of her eyes.

“Grif?”

Grif tilts his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. “What d'you want, Simmons?”

“You ran off. Uh, back there.”

Simmons is weird. He handles blood just fine. Maybe something about the surgeries did that, maybe he was awake for part of them; Grif never asked, didn't really wanna know. But he handles blood and gore okay. He'll get grossed out like anybody else, but where Grif retches and backs away, Simmons just turns the body over to check for vitals. Sometimes Grif wonders what the difference is between them, why Grif can't handle seeing someone's insides on the outside but Simmons can, when literally everything else that doesn't matter turns him into a shivering mess.

Simmons comes over and sits next to him, looping his arms around his knees.

Grif hates that he's gonna crack, that he's gonna say it. He doesn't want to and Simmons knows he doesn't want to; that's why he's not saying anything first. He doesn't want to give Grif an opportunity to deflect, to turn it onto something else. He wants Grif to say it. Grif doesn't want to say it.

He's gonna say it anyway.

“She looked like Kai. For a second.” Grif reaches up to press a hand over his eyes and grits his teeth. “Her _hair-_ ”

“She's not Kai,” Simmons mutters.

“I fucking know that, I just-” He just nothing. He can feel her lifting his arm when they were small, when she was much smaller than he was, when they were sitting outside at a bus stop because CPS was going to do a home visit and they didn't have someone in with them so they had to pretend to be out. Grif packed her little backpack and put her in her cutest dress and they sat at a bus stop like they were going to go somewhere, but they didn't. They just waited.

Kai got bored easily so she'd drawn, eaten all her snacks too soon, played with her dolls and then complained, threw a tantrum and finally climbed back onto the bench next to him. And she'd lifted his arm, wiggled into his side and slept there until it was time to go home, little shoes dangling off the edge of the bench and into the sun.

But Simmons wouldn't get it. He's said as much before. He doesn't have family he cares about, who cares about him, and he doesn't know what it's like to have someone small leaning against your side in the sweltering summer, hanging off your shirt and trusting you to get the both of you back home.

Grif doesn't look up when he hears scraping bootfalls nearby, but he feels the air change as Simmons moves next to him and then the bootfalls are receding. The low murmur of Simmons's voice as he shoos away whoever it was.

Sure, yeah, Simmons doesn't get it. But he doesn't have to. He's never _asked_ to. Simmons, who has to understand everything, who always wants an explanation doesn't ask Grif to explain anything he can't and that's the important thing here, the thing that keeps Grif from getting up and leaving, that lets Simmons chase people away when he himself stays; that for Simmons, Grif knows he's the exception to all of Simmons's rules, and Simmons is the exception to his.

 

* * *

 

Grif and Simmons don't do a lot of joint missions together anymore, so when an open patrol route pops up they actually _volunteer_ for it. Kimball is so flabbergasted that she lets them without asking why.

It's because Grif is sick and tired of dealing with Sarge, that's why.

If he has to walk the perimeter of the entire fucking city to get away from that lunatic and his fucking shotgun and his fucking _shooting Grif with the shotgun,_ then he'll absolutely do that. It'll take him forever, but he'll do it. That perimeter will be goddamn _patrolled._

“God, Grif, stop sulking. I can hear you complaining in your head from here.”

“Guess there's no point doing it in my head then, might as well complain out loud.”

“Please don't.”

“Why the _fuck_ is _Sarge_ training us again?! We're big damn heroes! Why would Kimball do this to us?!”

Simmons sighs, shouldering his rifle.

“I mean, it's not like we've been doing our jobs _badly_ or anything, so it's not like she has an excuse-”

“What are you talking about? _Of course_ we've been doing our jobs badly! We barely do anything except complain all day!”

“Well then that's her fault for not giving us stuff to do that we're good at!”

Simmons sighs again.

“God, what the hell is up with you? You've been so annoying lately,” Grif grumbles, turning off the patrol path and sliding down the side of the outcrop.

“Grif, what the fuck. Where are you going?”

“I gotta take a leak! Unless that's gonna get me _demerits,_ wouldn't wanna get a _poor performance review._ I swear to god, I miss the days when we got paid to stand around and do nothing.”

“Like we do now?” Simmons asks, face turning red when he hears the _clank_ of Grif unlatching his armor and dropping it to the ground. Stupid. Stupid brain. There is nothing attractive about Grif taking a piss. _No-_ don't you dare think about his hands on his own dick, you disgusting pervert.

“Does this look like we're doing nothing, Simmons? We're _patrolling._ ” Simmons sneaks a peek to see Grif shake off and reach for his armor and whirls back around. “Because if we weren't patrolling we'd be _training,_ with _Sarge,_ who would probably build some bullshit obstacle course for us to die in. Ugh. At least Washington just did the standard torture, at least he never got creative. I bet Tucker and Caboose never had to run a fucking stupid obstacle course with hurdles and turret fire and fucking m-”

“ _Grif stop!_ ”

Amazingly Grif does, frozen in a half-lurch for his next step and staring up at Simmons. “What, what? What is it?”

Simmons skids down the side of the outcrop because no, no. He couldn't have heard something like that with all of Grif's bitching and moaning. He creeps down to the ground near Grif's foot, puts his ear down and holds up a hand. “Grif...really, _really_ slowly, shift your weight back.”

“Why, _why the fuck_ -” Grif's voice creeps up an octave. “Oh my god, is it a mine? _Am I standing on a fucking mine right now?_ ”

“Grif!”

“Okay! Fuck! Okay, okay okay okay okay.” Grif slowly shifts his weight back onto his foot and Simmons prays for a minute to a god who obviously doesn't exist, what with all the evidence of intelligent design thrown out the window after humanity got a look at this shitshow of a galaxy-

_Click._

Simmons swears, hard and harsh and pushes himself up onto his hands and knees. “ _Fuck!_ Okay Grif, _don't move_ from there, not even a fucking inch.” He- should he run off and find someone better equipped? No. Grif would freak out. He should at least get a look at this thing first.

“Simmons,” Grif says, voice low and trembling with terror, “do _not_ let me die here. I can’t die today. I still have so much I want to do.”

“You have literally nothing you want to do,” Simmons grunts, scooping the dirt away from the mine beneath Grif’s foot with excruciating care. Okay. He knows this one. UNSC standard anti-personnel hardware, used a lot against Insurrectionists. They learned about these in basic.

“Exactly! Do you understand how much nothing I’m going to have to do to make up for all the everything I’ve been doing here?! I’m going to have to stay _completely still_ for like, I don’t know-”

Simmons rubs his thumb over the mine’s edges until he finds a crease in the casing. He slips his knife from its sheath and edges the blade into it. “The rest of your life?”

“ _The rest of my life!_ That’s so much time ahead of me! I don’t wanna die!”

“ _Grif,_ ” Simmons huffs, pushing himself up onto an elbow so he can properly convey how _done_ he is. “I’m gonna disarm this thing. It’s a standard M-Class B22 mine with a hardwired weight plate. You’re not gonna die if you’d just _shut up_ and _stop moving around._ ”

“Save me Simmons,” Grif whimpers, but obediently hunches his shoulders, clutches his helmet and falls silent, weight heavy on his right leg.

Simmons lays back down. He’s not _positive_ he can disarm the mine; they were assembled to be tamper-proof but their options are kind of limited. Of course if he fucks this up, he and Grif are meat splatters all over the surrounding cliffs. Even if the next patrol comes by and finds them, there's not a lot they can do. Maybe he can try displacing Grif's weight on it instead of disarming it? But what the hell around here is heavy enough to trigger this thing? This is an _anti-personnel_ mine, specifically made for blowing folks in armor to hell in a handbasket. What the heck can _Simmons_ do against something like that? He's not bomb squad, he's never even seen the inside of these things up close outside of the technical diagrams he looked up. Theoretically it should follow the same wiring system as other explosives but if he's wrong-

“So like, are you saving me or are we dead? I need to know if we're gonna die.”

“Shut up Grif, you're breaking my concentration!”

“You're not concentrating, you're staring and freaking out! I can _feel_ you freaking out, you're gonna choke!”

Well he wasn't thinking about choking _before._ “No I'm not! I mean- I've never actually done this before, okay!?”

“You were confident like two minutes ago! Dammit Simmons, where'd that confidence go?!”

“I don't know! Stop asking me questions! I'm trying to think- maybe we can just displace your weight instead, so I don't have to mess with anything inside of it-”

“Will that work?! Is that gonna work, can we just-”

“ _Oh my god,_ don't move! Don't move yet!”

“ _Shit!_ Simmons don't yell at me, goddamn!”

“Idiot, you can't move until I get something to displace your weight with! And considering it's _you_ then I'm gonna have to roll a fucking tank over here first!”

“Really?! _Really?!_ You want to spend our last moments alive getting in one last fat joke?!”

“Dammit Grif, I'm gonna die how I lived!”

Turns out neither of them die, because the mine is a dud. They find out when the next patrol comes by and shouts something about _What the hell are you guys doing_ because it's Bitters, and Bitters doesn't respect the goddamn chain of command. Simmons and Grif both startle and Grif jumps off the mine and then they're both screaming, clutching each other on the ground and screaming while they wait for death to take them.

It doesn't happen. What happens is Bitters says, “Oh ho ho,” and takes a picture of them in each other's laps. “This is going up on Basebook.” Why the fuck does he even use a phone when their helmets can do just about everything? Simmons is not even going to _begin_ to understand Grif's weird squad.

The point is that they don't die. The other mines are absolutely active though, and they find _that_ out when they leave and Grif throws a rock angrily at the minefield and the force of the resulting explosion makes all three of them go partially deaf for four days.

Grif won't stop looking at him out of the corner of his eye though. It's really starting to freak him out.

 

* * *

 

“Slowly being crushed to death. Like- you can see the walls closing in but you can't do anything, like the trash compactor scene in-”

“-right, yeah, the _Star Wars_ scene. That would definitely suck, but I dunno if it'd be the _worst_ way to go.”

Simmons scoffs. “Okay, name something worse then.”

Grif leans back, lacing his hands over his belly and sucking on the filter of his unlit cigarette. “Probably being really, really slowly torn apart. Like, on one of those old medieval stretch table things.”

“If the requirement for making a death horrible is making it slower, then we might as well just say living's the worst way to die. Hey, you know a horrible way to die? _Being in a war._ You die a little bit more every day!”

Grif eyeballs Simmons a little too critically. “That's pretty dark. Something happen?”

Simmons looks away. “Let's just talk about something else.” Because nothing _happened,_ it's never anything that's just actually _happened._ It's just his stupid brain as per usual, feeding him scenario after scenario, ramping up his anxiety over shit that hasn't even occurred. Or might never occur. And trying to explain that to somebody who doesn't have anxiety is always an exercise in frustration because, inevitably, that dumb asshole will say something like 'you know it's all in your head right' and Simmons will have to go 'obviously I know it's all in my head you fucking idiot, but you know what else is in my head? ME, I AM IN MY HEAD. THAT'S THE PROBLEM.'

“Okay, fine.” Grif reaches for his lighter and Simmons wrinkles his nose. Grif knows he hates it when he _actually_ smokes, so this is probably his way of getting back at him for dragging him back to his room the other night. Speaking of anxiety, that's another thing that's got Simmons wired, because when he woke up the next morning to Sarge's enthusiastic shouting with a killer hangover and a roiling gut, he can't remember what happened after Carolina left with Caboose. Grif refusing to speak to him that morning until they'd exhausted themselves running laps was also a bad sign. He must've done something stupid. Really stupid, like, tried to _kiss_ Grif or something. Oh god. Just because Grif is into dudes doesn't mean he'd be into _Simmons,_ but Simmons is about a thousand percent sure his drunk self wouldn't make that connection. His drunk self is distressingly stupid and self-sabotaging. Drunk Simmons doesn't give a fuck about sober Simmons, and actively seeks to destroy him and his relationships with other people.

Despite agreeing to talk about something else, Grif doesn't actually start any new topics so that leaves Simmons with the task of filling the silence between them. Grif makes it through half his cigarette before Simmons finally lands on something to talk about. And it's a great topic, and it's witty and charming and it makes Grif laugh, Simmons's intelligent observations and cutting commentary. Grif looks at him like he hung the moon and then some, and Simmons realizes that it's easy, turning what they are into what they could be.

Or that's what he wishes had happened.

What happens instead is Grif finishes his cigarette in the silence, stubs it out against the concrete and flicks the filter away before heaving himself up onto his feet. “I'm too old for this shit,” he says instead, like he's just had it up to _here_ but he ran out of the energy to be angry ages ago. Simmons has no idea what the fuck that's supposed to mean.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he asks, because if there's one person on this miserable rock to whom he can just say the stuff that comes into his head, it's Grif.

Grif shoves his hands into his pockets and looks at Simmons. “Do you wanna make out?”

Simmons stares and waits for the punchline, so he knows how angry he should be.

Another handful of uncomfortable seconds pass and Grif sighs. “There's no punchline, Simmons. That's an invitation.”

“There's always a punchline,” Simmons insists, and maybe he's not just talking about his interactions with Grif at this point. If there's no punchline then there's a reprimand, always, _always._

“Not this time. Do you wanna make out or not?”

Grif is looking at him here, tired and worn and if Simmons looks real close, with just a _shred_ of vulnerability on his face. Or maybe it's not, maybe it's all tired and worn and Simmons just doesn't know what vulnerability looks like on Grif's face, because in order to be vulnerable you have to care about something.

“Are you serious?” Simmons asks before he tells himself it's okay to ask it. He's got to know.

“I'm serious.”

“This better not be some bullshit.”

“It's not.”

This is too different. It's weird. Grif isn't understanding; he's a prick, he doesn't waste his time reassuring people, being gentle with their feelings. Grif's still looking at him with his hands in his pockets, though he's leaning against the wall now. Simmons stands up because he doesn't know what else to do with his body.

His mouth keeps moving without asking him. His heart- well it doesn't hammer, because it runs cycles instead of beats now, but he can hear it whirring hard and frantic behind his half-metal ribcage. “I- I jacked off thinking about you.”

“I'm done fucking around,” Grif tells him. “You're right. Maybe next time I step on a mine, you won't be there.”

“Don't,” Simmons says warningly, because that's _worse_ than freaking him out with this understanding bullshit, with this quiet intimacy that shows up between them every now and then only for one of them to ruin it. It would take him both hands to count the number of times he's come close to telling Grif something he won't be able to take back. It's about the same amount of fingers for all the times he thought they were gonna die together.

That day was one of them.

“ _Simmons,”_ Grif says, insistent. “Are we gonna do this or what?”

Simmons stands with one foot off the edge of the cliff and the other on. He leans forward, back. He doesn't know what to do, what's going to end up with the most favorable results, whether this should become anything at all or if they should stay the same. There's no manual to consult, no past studies to peruse, nothing to show him the proper course of action. All he has here is his admittedly dubious judgment.

_You don't have to have an answer to everything. Sometimes you just_ _**do** _ _things, you know? Maybe it turns into something later, maybe not. It just is._

Simmons leans forward.

Grif tilts his head back as Simmons tilts his down, and Grif tastes like cigarettes so it could probably be better. Simmons doesn't know what to do with his hands so one arm goes up against the wall, holding up his weight, the other hand slipping into the back pocket of his fatigues. His eyes are open and it occurs to him that it must look pretty stupid for him to be staring at Grif's pores while they're kissing so he closes them and that sorta makes it easier, sorta helps his cyborg heart slow down a few rotations.

Simmons pulls back and their lips makes a sound when they part, wet and intimate and it makes Simmons's breath hitch when he draws it in.

Grif snickers. “We look like a teen magazine photoshoot.”

Simmons opens his eyes and looks down between them, at his arm against the concrete next to Grif's head and Grif slouched back against the wall, hands still in his pockets and he laughs. “God damn it, you're right. We need new names. Teen magazine names.”

“I'll be Terry.”

“I'll be Jay.”

Simmons doesn't know what it is about stupid bullshit jokes but when he leans back down Grif meets him a little easier, and they get some tongue in there and it's not fucking, it's not furious handjobs in a storage closet somewhere but he doesn't think he could manage something like that right off the bat anyway.

 

* * *

 

 

“What the hell is this,” Grif demands, bursting into Kimball's office slapping his tablet down onto her desk. The general looks down at it before slowwwly looking up at him and he wonders briefly if maybe the dramatic entrance wasn't the correct choice, but no. He's already committed. And he's pissed off anyway. Or something.

Kimball scoops up his tablet and scrolls through the entries. “These look like transfer requests,” Kimball says, holding the tablet back out. He's not taking that. He doesn't _want_ it. She responds to that little act of defiance by standing up and shoving it against his chest, and he's not losing the porno he just downloaded by letting it fall and break so he grabs onto it. “What’s the problem?”

Did she actually even look at it? _How is the problem not obvious?_ “Uh, the problem is that these are transfer requests _into_ my squad! I don’t want more people! More people is more work!”

“Then refuse them?” She stares at him when he waves his tablet and just- he just- how does he explain to a person who _enjoys_ doing things that he doesn't want to _do things?_ “Looks like your plan of being as unassuming as possible backfired.”

Oh fuck. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course.” God, and now she sounds so fucking smug about it. Grif glares as hard as he can, telegraphs it through his helmet because he doesn't _care_ if she's a fucking general. He's technically not actually in this army, and he can fuck off whenever he likes. Sure, okay, he _won't_ because he's all _invested_ and shit and also because this is the only place on the planet with any processed food left, but she doesn't have to know that. No, what she has to know is that this isn't some kind of 'make Grif come to realize he loves being a Captain' exercise, which is probably what she's going for. She's doing the same fucking thing to him that Wash did to Tucker, and _now_ look at Tucker. Wrapped around the guy's finger. Like a sad, sorry sack of shit.

Kimball had brought all the Captains in when they'd first joined up with the New Republic, tried to get to know each of them personally. She'd said some embarrassing shit to him also, about how he was _clever_ and _creative_ and _imaginative_ and how those traits were vital to the success of any battle and that they couldn't be _learned,_ and it was horrible because it sounded like she meant every word. Like when she looked at him, she didn't see the lazy good-for-nothing that everybody else did.

But with that means she expects more. And more is what Grif doesn't want to give.

“If you have a problem, then set up some transfer criteria. Narrow it down a little at least; I don’t want anyone inexperienced under your command anyway, since you refuse to train your squad personally.”

Like that. _Training_ people. _More._ “Yeah, Wash doesn’t need my help with that.”

“I’m not expecting you to run mock ops with them every other day, but I read the reports from your last assignment. Your people don’t follow you in an effective way. They don’t _trust_ you, not entirely, and I know you know it.”

On top of complimenting him when he doesn't want it, she does this shit. She finds those chinks in his metaphorical armor and just digs right in like nobody else has ever been able to. Not even Simmons, not even Sarge. How she manages to pick up on the things that bug him the most is baffling and _infuriating,_ and he really hates that out of all shitty backwater planets in the galaxy to crash on, their ship had to run into this one with Vanessa Kimball and her goddamn astuteness.

“Captain Grif, I won’t say it again: your squad is _your_ responsibility. If you’d like to give up that responsibility, then let me know and I will reassign your people but you can’t half-ass this anymore.”

Grif stares at her, then looks away and shifts his weight. He could do that. He _could_ just give them up, get them split up between other people. Maybe shove them at Tucker, now that Tucker has a hard on for being an effective person or whatever. “Lemme think about it,” he mutters.

Kimball's head tilts. Grif wonders if maybe she expected him to dump them right then and there. “I’ll need an answer by the end of the week.”

He's already out the door when he remembers he's apparently supposed to wait to be dismissed, but seriously, just fuck that.

 

* * *

 

“Oh shit. Okay, okay...”

“Stop freaking out.”

“I'm not.”

Grif leans back and stares hard at Simmons.

“I'm not! I'm- it's weird, sorta, okay? But it's good.” When Grif doesn't move Simmons props himself up on his elbows. “I'm serious!”

“I swear to god, Simmons,” Grif says, his voice all scrunched up when he's about to throw a fit. God save Simmons's damnable soul, he kind of finds that tone sorta cute.

“Would you just keep going? Jesus _Christ_ Grif, maybe _you're_ the one being weird about this!”

“Right, I'm the one who'd be weird about gay stuff, me with my ultra-conservative upbringing.” But Grif at least seems reassured that Simmons isn't about to have a meltdown because he ducks his head back down. His stubble scratches against Simmons's stomach and kind of hurts, but then Grif's hand slides down over the front of his fatigues and presses just hard enough and shit, _it's just like how he imagined._

“H-hurry up,” Simmons stammers, hoping for the answer he'd gotten in his daydream.

He's not disappointed when Grif's hand presses down his zipper slow, _slow_ , agonizingly slow and he snickers against Simmons's skin, “Relax, I'll get there.”

“Oh shit,” Simmons whispers again. His hands fly to Grif's shoulders and he's always surprised by how solid they feel. Grif's got a layer of flab from refusing to work and eating like a slob, and he's got a gut that hangs over his belt but his shoulders and arms are shockingly beefy. Then again, Simmons _shouldn't_ be surprised. Just about the only training Grif doesn't mind is weight training, because he can sit down for most of it.

Simmons keeps his metal hand gripping the edge of his bunk, just in case. His flesh hand comes up and grabs onto Grif's ponytail, makes a fist around scruffy dark hair before just cupping the back of his head because shit, oh shit, Grif's moving lower and his tongue's out and tracing along the edge of his waistband and his hand is still really big and really solid and _really goddamn slow._

“Ever thought a guy could get your dick this hard?” Grif asks conversationally, like it's not fucking dirty talk, what he just said. He presses the heel of his hand against Simmons's hardon and Simmons arches up with a groan before he can even think about not sounding like such a freaking slut about it.

Maybe they're all barbs because they don't know how to go the other way. Simmons decides to give it a shot, just this once. “I mean, about you, yeah I've thought about it.”

He's rewarded with Grif giving him a look, this pinched thing in the corners of his eyes, one dark and one Simmons's hazel before he pops the button on Simmons's fatigues, tugs the zipper down and yanks down both his waistbands to get his cock out.

Grif's skin on his bare dick is like a thousand little electric shocks; Simmons rubbing one out on his own doesn't even _compare_. When Grif lowers his head and pops the head of his cock into his mouth and it's so fucking _warm_ and _wet_ and oh fucking _shit,_ he's gonna know for sure that Simmons is a virgin in a second-

“ _Holy shit!_ ”

Simmons jerks with a gasp, Grif pulls back and together they wrench around to stare at Tucker and _Washington_ with their stupid fucking helmet heads poked into the room, peering at the two of them and gripping the doorjamb. Simmons scrambles for a pillow as Grif shoves himself up faster than Simmons has ever seen, storms over as those two _Blue assholes_ go tearing off. Grif leans out the door and shouts after them, voice like a roar, “ _MOTHERFUCKER,_ ” and Simmons presses the pillow over his embarrassingly hard dick, half-rolled onto his elbow as he watches Grif angrily stab at the keypad to engage the lock. “Fucking _pricks,_ ” Grif hisses, leaning a hand against the closed door before turning around to look at him, eyes all guarded.

Simmons says, “So are we gonna keep going or what?” and Grif is back at his side in a second.

When Grif sucks him back down and grips the base of his dick hard enough to make Simmons sob, he says, “I've never actually been with a real live human before,” and Grif pulls off long enough to laugh at him.

“You nerd, I _know.”_

Simmons comes with his cyborg hand curled around the bedframe bending divots into the metal, his flesh hand fisted in Grif's hair as he gasps, shakes, even cries a little bit (which is so fucking embarrassing and he's hoping Grif missed him wiping away the tears) and then Grif pants into his chest as he jerks himself off and comes all over Simmons's thigh and honestly, it's a lot less messy than Simmons expected his first time to be.

 

* * *

 

Grif stares down at the object in his hands before looking back up at Simmons. “What the fuck is this?”

Simmons shifts his weight awkwardly. “It’s- dammit Grif, you know what it is! Look at it!”

“It’s a ukulele.” Grif turns it over in his hands. “You’re giving me a ukulele? Where the hell did you _find_ a ukulele?”

“Does it matter?”

“Also, when did I ever tell you that I know how to play a ukulele?”

“You-” Simmons falters, finger pointed accusingly starting to droop. “What? You don’t know how to play?”

“Yeah I do, but I never _told_ you.” Grif strips his gloves off and unclasps his helmet, slowly setting it aside as he looks down at the tiny instrument on his lap. “You just assumed. ‘Cause you’re racist.”

“I’m not racist! I’m- you must’ve told me!”

“Nope.” Grif strums the strings and winces. “Fuck, it’s all outta tune. Hang on.”

Simmons rubs a hand over the top of his helmet. “I’m sure I heard you say it at least once…”

It’s been years; the callouses have been stripped from the fingertips of the hand originally his from disuse, and Simmons’s hand- well, that’s probably never so much as gotten a papercut. His reflexes are a little sluggish with that one but thank god it’s not his chord hand, then he’d _really_ be in trouble.

Simmons comes over to sit down beside him, still lost in thought as Grif tries to tune the damn thing as best he can just by ear. He remembers a few tuning chords at least and that helps; when he strums it again it’s no longer rife with dissonance. Sounds really nice, actually. “This thing’s in good shape.” Grif plucks out a few scales. “You didn’t murder someone for this, did you?”

“I mean, if I did, would you give it back?”

“Not a chance.”

They sit together in the near-quiet of Grif testing out his memory. While he knows how to play one it _has_ been years, and it’s bringing back more feelings of home than he thought it would so he’s not sure he wants to play it here behind the barracks, where anyone walking past could see.

“Do you like it?” Simmons’s voice is that soft worried tone, the one that sounds like how a kid looks when they’re expecting to get smacked.

It’s that imagery that keeps Grif from shooting back something shitty, for once. “Yeah,” he says, running his fingers over the strings. “Thanks.”

Simmons shrugs a shoulder.

“I don't go around looking for shit to give you though.”

The forced casualness in Simmons's tone is obvious. He must've worked up a lot of nerve to say, “Just take a shower and suck my dick again.”

“Shit, all these years and I could've just done _that?_ Hell, Simmons.”

The banter between them quiets back down and Grif plucks out some half-remembered commercial ditty. _Something-something speed of light, made with real something and Earth-grown rice!_ Kai loved those things, whatever the fuck they were. He'd sounded out the commercial tune because she liked to hum along while she ate.

Simmons shifts closer, probably because he can somehow sense that he's thinking about his sister again. His shoulder presses up against Grif's and even with the armor in the way, Grif thinks he can feel something more in it. But Simmons won't ask, because he's _Simmons._ The most he can do is make a joke about it.

Grif strums out another chord and remembers the cool metal of Simmons's fingertips on his scalp before he'd jerked away, remembers the creak of the bending bedframe, remembers looking at it after and thinking _shit, really glad Simmons was paying attention because I sure as fuck wasn't._

“Let's go fool around,” he says, pushing himself up.

Simmons scrambles up, all eager and ridiculous-looking but hey, Grif is apparently pretty good at sucking dick so he can't really blame the guy. “-you're gonna shower first though, right?”

“Ugh, you were serious about that? _Why?_ We're just gonna get messy again.”

“Because we've been in armor all day, Grif! That's gross!”

“God. Fine. You better shower too then, I'm not going through this alone.”

“Of course I'm going to shower!”

Grif doesn't bother putting on clothes after getting out of the shower, just walks into Simmons's quarters with a towel around his waist and ignores the way Simmons squeaks and rushes to lock the door. “Grif what the fuck! Did anybody see you?”

“People already think we're dating, numbnuts,” Grif points out, tossing the bottle of lube and box of condoms onto Simmons's bunk and watching him get even redder.

“ _Oh my god,_ you didn't even put it in a bag or something?! Grif!”

“What?”

“People don't know we're _having sex!_ ”

“People who date sometimes also have sex. Shocking, I know.” He snaps off his towel and brings it up to dry his hair and Simmons's eyes go right to his dick before he whips his head around, pretending to mess with the box of condoms instead. Grif rolls his eyes. “Would you stop?”

“Could- can we do this with the lights off?”

“ _Again?_ What, do I turn you off or something?”

“No! No. No, I just- I'm nervous.”

“Yeah. You're kind of making it obvious.”

Simmons sits down on the edge of the bed, crinkling a little foil packet between his fingers. Grif sighs and sits down next to him, draping the towel over his lap so at least Simmons will _pay attention_ instead of getting all freaked out at the sight of a dick he wants to touch. “Look, _I get it._ I already know. You have hangups about gay shit, you're kind of a homophobe.”

Simmons balks. “I-I'm not-”

“You are. You don't do it on purpose. And you _are_ gonna unlearn that shit. Do you _wanna_ unlearn that shit? Because that's kind of important, you admitting it and then admitting that you wanna unlearn it.”

Simmons lowers the packet to his lap, fingers going still. “...yeah. Fine, okay, all right. I just- I don't want people to- to laugh at me. Or _you,_ ” he adds, and Grif knows that part's sincere at least. Simmons has hangups and Simmons might have a seriously skewed worldview where apparently everyone is preparing to laugh at him, but at least he's not just thinking of himself.

“I don't give a fuck if anybody does,” Grif tells him, because he doesn't. Well- about this, anyway. About most stuff. His 'don't laugh at me' hangups are pretty specifically centered around family, but if some moron wants to get their giggles by making fun of the fact that _he's_ getting laid? Whatever. “If someone gets in your face about it, just tell them that _you're_ getting your dick sucked on a nightly basis. Seems like a pretty goddamn good deal for you.”

Simmons snorts. “Like you're going to suck my dick every night.”

“No. But they don't know that.”

Simmons hangs his head and scuffs a hand through his hair. “I'm sorry, okay? I don't mean to be so fucked up.”

“Put your dick in me and we'll be square.”

Simmons's hands clench around the condom packet and he stares at Grif, wide-eyed and blushing so hard Grif is pretty sure he could cook an egg on his face. “You want me to-”

“Yeah, I told you dude, I _know_ you've got hangups so I'm pretty sure it's gonna take a while to work up to me fucking _you._ ”

Simmons makes a sound in the back of his throat like a dying camel.

“Nice. Attractive.” The worst part is that Grif kinda means it. Ugh. Since when was he into closet-clinging homophobes with robot limbs and dumb hair, anyway? Since when has that become his type? Stupid nerdy Simmons. Stupid fucking nerdy Simmons who cares about him and brings him presents and doesn't rag on him about his sister when it's important, who pushes him back on the bed and leaves the light _on_ and gives him a hickey.

Simmons stalls when he gets the lube open and Grif has to stop him again, because he took care of that in the shower because again, _he knows,_ and Simmons just kind of wilts in relief over him. “Relax,” Grif mutters, feeling a little bit bitter but mostly exasperated and okay, sorta nervous since he's technically never had an actual dick up there before. It can't be all that bad, right? Wash and Tucker do it all the fucking time, _literally all the time._ Tucker won't shut up about it. Grif still can't believe that tool had jumped him the morning after he and Wash had actually _fucked_ to tell Grif that Wash sat on his dick and _dude, it was so fucking awesome, like he just went down on it and like I almost fucking came right there, holy shit dude I never thought I'd love abs so much but there they were, like fucking miles of them_ and Grif had to escape by literally jumping over a wall and running.

“What's the condom for?” Simmons unwraps it and rolls it on anyway. “It's not like you can get knocked up.”

“Seriously? I don't want your jizz in my ass, how about that?”

“Grif, ugh.”

“What the fuck is 'ugh' about it? You're about to fuck me, get over it already.”

“Well, I mean, can't you at least be romantic about it?”

“I'm the one getting fucked here, so I'm pretty sure _you're_ supposed to be romantic.”

“Oh.” Simmons looks down between them before leaning over Grif and caging him in with his arms. “Uh, you...have nice eyes?”

“One of them's yours,” Grif points out. “So. Kind of self-serving there.”

“I'm gonna have a hard time complimenting you.”

“You're gonna have a hard time regardless.”

Simmons stares before snorting and ducking his head, forehead pressing against Grif's chest as he laughs. “Oh my god. _Thank fuck_ Tucker's not here.”

“Yeah, this time.”

“Don't _remind_ me, Jesus Christ.”

It's not the steamy, porno-quality fuck that Grif was expecting. Simmons lines up and gets all nervous but pushes in slow and it actually hurts, more than Grif thought it would, for a while. “ _Ow,_ ” he says accusingly, gripping Simmons's shoulders and wondering what the fuck the point of prep was if it's just going to hurt anyway. “That _hurts._ ”

“Holy shit,” Simmons hisses, face back against Grif's chest as he shakes and shakes. “Grif, I'm gonna come.”

“Don't you dare! I'm not even hard anymore, shit.”

“I gotta move.”

“No!”

They compromise. Simmons promises, swears up and down that he can totally get it back up and pulls out, strips off the condom and jerks himself off kneeling on the bed. Grif is suspicious that he just said that because he wanted to get off but it's not like they were getting that far with what they were doing anyway, so he snags the lube and fingers himself and okay, okay so Simmons rubbing his palm over his dick and gasping Grif's name is _sort of_ really hot. His life is over. He just thought this nerd is hot.

Simmons passes out on the bed and Grif sighs and just wipes his fingers off, pulls the blankets over them and goes to sleep with half a stiffy.

He wakes up and it's not even an hour later but Simmons is kissing up and down his neck. “Yo,” he grumbles. “You fell asleep.”

“Well, I'm awake. Wanna try again?”

Apparently Simmons is a lot more agreeable after getting off and taking a nap because this time he offers to help stretch Grif out. He has a weird look on his face, one Grif doesn't really like, but Simmons's fingers are kind of long and really get in there, and when he finds Grif's prostate he curls against it like a fucking _animal._

“Shit, fucking _shit,”_ Grif hisses, one arm really tight around Simmons's shoulders, pinning him down against him. “Fuck. That feels good.”

“I didn't get to see you last time you got off,” Simmons mumbles against his cheek. “'Cause your face was hidden. You grit your teeth a lot.”

“So?”

“That's gonna wear down the enamel.”

“Oh my god, you _loser._ ”

Simmons has his dick inside Grif and is about three thrusts in when he suddenly stops and gasps above him, “ _Guitar._ ”

Grif, whose brain had been sinking pleasantly into that buzz of _gonna get off,_ takes a minute to try and figure out what Simmons just said and why that means he has to stop fucking him just when they got it to feel good. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You told me you knew how to play the _guitar._ That's why I thought you could play the ukulele.”

“I'm gonna kill you. I'm just gonna roll us over and fucking suffocate you right now, with myself.”

“Sorry! Sorry, it was just. It was bugging me.”

But Simmons keeps going and that's the important part, that he _doesn't stop again,_ not when Grif's fingers are digging harder and harder into his back, not when Simmons squirms a hand between them to wrap around Grif's cock and jerk him off. “Fuck, fuck fuck,” Grif chants and he comes without a whole lot of outward fanfare, but his heart's hammering (Simmons's heart) and his lungs are heaving (Simmons's lungs) and Simmons is there, his metal arm long since warmed because of where it's been pressed against Grif's side. “Oh shit Simmons, that's so fucking good,” because Simmons kept _going_ through the whole thing and Grif's brain is fucking _mush._

“Really? I-I didn't screw it up?”

Grif snorts. “No, it was awesome. Now fucking come already.”

Simmons buries his face in Grif's chest (man, he must really like it there) and it takes a little bit of work, it takes Grif's fingers combing through Simmons's sweaty hair, it takes Grif sighing and relaxing back and letting Simmons fuck into him for another minute, shivering whenever Simmons goes a little too deep but eventually he comes, murmuring _something_ into Grif's skin that Grif can't hear but from the feel of it, from the taste of Simmons's tongue when he kisses him later, it must've been something good.

 

* * *

 

It was supposed to be _simple._

Get dropped off at the watchtower, which is still considerably fucked up from Carolina's little murder spree a while back. Carolina takes Caboose and Donut to the rougher place, that weapons depot. After Wash's failed attempt to recapture it, security will be beefed up and hopefully focused more over there.

Simmons and Grif take their squads to the caves, stuff all the structurally weak spots with explosives and then high-tail it out and blow the place to kingdom come. Gold Team takes the west branch, Simmons Squad (as he insisted it be called because alliteration is important and “Maroon Team” just doesn't have the same ring to it) takes the east. If there's any resistance, put it down, but preliminary scouting reveals no activity in the past two months.

Preliminary scouts are gonna get their asses kicked when Simmons gets back to Armonia. Or tattled on. More likely they're going to get tattled on.

There's not just a handful of mercs, there's a _dozen_ of them camped out in the last junction where they have to place the most important explosives package, naturally, and they have a goddamn _radio jammer_ so Simmons can't even call to Grif for backup.

“Sir,” Sullivan whispers to him, “what do we do?”

 _Run,_ Simmons tells her. _We run and live and get yelled at for this later, but that doesn't matter because we're alive to be yelled at so who cares?_

He wants to tell her that. Shit. Grif would be able to tell her that.

“I'll go make a distraction,” Simmons tells them instead. “You all sneak around, arm the package and then- then I dunno, make another distraction. We'll all make a bunch of distractions and meet back here and then run for our lives.”

The girls look amongst each other and Simmons can't see their faces, so he imagines they're all exchanging sharply critical texts re: his questionable leadership skills. Jensen nods though, and then the others nod and they split up and Simmons is left trying to figure out how to make a distraction that won't get him immediately shot to death. He starts by chucking a grenade down the adjoining path away from the girls and figures he'll wing it from there.

'Winging it' does not work so well. Only three of the mercs go to investigate the grenade, which honestly he should've expected. Or he would have if he was actually any good at his job, at _anything,_ if he was just _half_ as smart as he thought he was sometimes. That means he has nine more mercs to distract, mercs who are now on alert and looking for anything suspicious like, say, a bunch of soldiers setting up an explosive right around the corner, where _four mercs are headed right now, shit-_

Maybe he can make it over to the radio jammer. It's right in the open but if he can get close enough-

“Well well,” says a voice behind him, the muzzle of a rifle pressing right above his implants. “What do we have _here?_ An idiot playing soldier?”

 _Fuck._ “Actually, uh, you see, I’m an _intellectual_ playing soldier. …probably?”

“Hands up, genius,” the merc orders, nudging hard at the back of his helmet. When he lifts his hands she knees the small of his back. “Stand. Turn around. Don’t fucking move an inch.”

Instead of considering courses of action or planning a way to overpower his attacker, Simmons thinks on all the ways this will go horribly wrong and end up with him and his squad dead. He thinks _Damn you Carolina, this is why we wanted you here._ He thinks about Grif’s hands running through his hair. He thinks about Sarge clapping him on the back those rare times he actually _praises_ him and he thinks about Doyle telling him _Good work, soldier,_ and Kimball nodding at him from across the war room. All things he’ll lose if she shoots him in the back of the head. _When_ she shoots him in the back of the head.

“I’ve got one. …yeah. The red one.”

“ _Maroon,_ ” Simmons mutters sullenly. Why can nobody ever get his color right? Is he just not that memorable?

The merc presses her rifle practically _into_ his implants in criticism of his correction, so he elects to keep his opinions to himself for a while. “No, just him. No Freelancers. …all right.” The merc returns her attention to Simmons and steps back, motioning with her rifle. “March, asshole.”

 _April, May,_ Simmons thinks wildly, because if Caboose was here that’s what would come next. Or if Donut was here-

“ _Fucking move._ ”

Simmons moves.

She leads him into this carved out little security room, the dusty outlines of long-removed consoles still against the cave walls and the four members of his squad huddled in the corner where one merc keeps a gun on them and another is handcuffing them together. Why are all the mercs women? _What is the deal with him and women who want to hurt him?_ Who does he look like, Church?

Dammit. Grif’s not even around to congratulate him on that pretty good burn, too. This day just keeps getting worse and worse.

“Captain, we’re sorry,” Jensen says from the corner and Simmons feels protectiveness surge up at the crack in her visor and the scuff marks all over their armor. Those are _his_ soldiers these bitches roughed up. –oh god, he didn’t say that aloud did he? No? Whew.

“Not your fault. I mean, it was kind of inevitable,” Simmons tells her instead, and he gets kneed in the back again for his trouble. “Ow! Geez, what! You didn’t even tell me what to do!”

“Why the hell are all of you so _mouthy_?” the merc complains as she shoves him against the cave wall and pins him there with her rifle again.

“It’s part of our charm,” Yasmin calls angrily.

“Would you guys shut up?” Simmons hisses, because _they’re_ even more expendable than _he_ is, and he’s trying to figure out why the mercs haven’t just shot all of them yet. Him, maybe Hargrove wants to like, torture him or something for information. In which case he’s going to be _severely_ disappointed, because Simmons doesn’t crack under pressure, he shatters. There’s no in between; there’s defiance and there’s a blubbering, incomprehensible wreck. So the pain will probably suck, but if he lives through it then it’ll be really satisfying to see Hargrove’s wrinkled mug turn purple when he realizes he wasted his time.

“Right. Right. ...yes sir.”

This is what happens when Simmons thinks about things. He misses the conversation at hand. “...ssssso are we being killed, or...?”

“Just them. You, we're torturing for information.”

“Wait, seriously? - _Wait!_ ”

The merc presses the muzzle of her rifle against Simmons's shoulder and he has just long enough to remember Dr. Grey chirping _make bullet-proof plating the new field standard_ before she fires.

His squad jumps at the sharp _crack_ and the flash of bright white that makes Simmons flinch back; Jensen cries, “Captain!” and Simmons considers for a second playing along for the surprise of it until he realizes he's taken too long, the mercs are staring at him suspiciously. Oh right. He's not screaming in pain. He should probably do something.

Washington's morning training comes back like a flash. _Immobilize the weapon._

Simmons looks down at her rifle. She follows his gaze. Simmons grabs the underside of the stock and overclocks his arm, bashes it into her visor as hard as he can before twisting it away. He doesn't keep his grip on it and it goes skidding but she'd _actually let go of the fucking thing_ and she stumbles back and falls. The other mercs whirl on him but Yasmin is already scrabbling for the weapon, swinging it up to bear and emptying a couple bursts into one's back while the rest of his squad piles on top of the last one, tackling her to the ground. Simmons shouts, “Hold her still, hold her still!” and darts over and says, “Oh my god, I'm hitting a girl,” before he ramps up the tension in his arm again and bashes his fist into the side of her helmet.

The merc Simmons had pistol-whipped is climbing back to her feet in a daze but Jensen is there, grabbing one of the fallen rifles and emptying almost half a clip into the merc's face. Simmons winces when blood spatters out from her broken visor but hey, they were going to kill his squad. What goes around.

Three mercs are on the ground, dead or bleeding out into their helmets and _soon_ dead and Simmons stares at them before staring up at his squad.

“Sir!” Jensen rushes over to his side, stolen rifle on her back and hands hovering at his shoulder. “Are- are you okay, are-?”

“What?” Simmons glances down at the hole torn into his survival suit. “Oh- yeah, I'm-” He digs around in the tattered fabric before plucking out the smushed remains of a bullet, holding it up for her to see. “Hit the plating, didn't even hurt.”

“Oh my god, we have the coolest cyborg captain,” Makos whispers. “S _o_ hot.”

Simmons feels his palm start to sweat as he just flicks the bullet away and clears his throat. “An- _Any_ way we should! We should get out of here, we've, uh, we've-”

“Uh, sir? Aren't there a bunch of guards still outside?”

“Oh.” _Shit._ “Right. Okay, so we should deal with that.”

“Sir?” Yasmin shoulders the stolen rifle. “I have a plan.”

Simmons looks over the soldiers in his squad, over Jensen with her cracked visor and Yasmin with her stolen rifle, toward Makos and Sullivan fiddling with the handcuffs between them until they pop off with a buzzing snap of busted electronics. His squad. He's responsible for them, but they've made it pretty clear they see themselves as just as responsible for _him._ And he doesn't have to be something else, he doesn't have to be a badass stalwart leader like Wash, he doesn't have to be good at everything like Carolina. His squad stuck with him because they're fine with whoever or whatever he is.

“Okay,” he says, a little dizzily. “Let's hear it, Private.”

 

* * *

 

They're not at the rendezvous. They're supposed to _be here_ or they're supposed to radio in and they're not here and they haven't called. They missed the deadline. That's not like Simmons, he's _obsessed_ with his fucking _timetables_ and his _accuracy._ He'd color-coded their orders for god's sake.

“Head over to evac,” he tells his team, because there were a couple mercs and Morita got a bullet in his leg, so they're getting an early ride home.

 _They_ are, anyway.

“Hey Caboose, flip this car over for me.” Caboose comes over and does it, pulling the Warthog back to bounce on its suspension with all the effort it takes to right a can of soda.

“Where the hell do you think you're going?”

Grif hauls himself up into the driver's seat. “Extraction. That's the part where you go get the soldiers out after you've sent them in, you might be familiar with it.”

“Grif, you're gonna get your dumb ass killed,” Church snaps.

“Hey Disco Fever, if I wanted your opinion I'd ask for it. Except I wouldn't, because I don't care.” Grif guns the engine, makes sure the thing is still working despite being sort of on fire. It's not a lot of fire. There's barely any fire in there, just some smoke coming out. Carolina went easy on it.

Church makes a noise like an angry crow. “What is up with you Reds not using my name?! Are you all allergic? God, you sound like Sarge.”

“You shut your damn mouth.”

Carolina is there suddenly, a looming presence that has never frightened Grif less than right now. “What about your squad?”

“They're done.” Grif throws an arm over the side of the Warthog. “Getting Simmons out isn't their job. They _did_ their job, and now they wanna go the fuck back home and they're going to. I'm just gonna take care of this first.”

Carolina nods just past Grif's shoulder and he looks. Bitters and Matthews are there, gathered on the passenger side and looking like how he feels; so fucking done with this war bullshit. “What're you doing? Get on the ship.”

“With all due respect sir,” Bitters says, shouldering his rifle, “nah.”

Grif shoves his elbow against his headrest so he can properly glare at his fucking disrespectful Lieutenant. Maverick or not, what's the fucking point of having a squad that won't listen to him? Wasn't Kimball _just_ getting on him about this, how they don't trust his judgment? “Okay, let's try this again: I fucking _order you_ to get your asses on the ship.”

“We want to help you!” Matthews pipes up, sounding absolutely terrified. He should try serving under Sarge, where insubordination equals buckshot to the chest instead of just an angry voice.

“I don't need your help.”

“Yeah,” Bitter drawls, “you do. You can't fit everyone from their team in just one car. We drew straws and me and Matthews are going with you.”

“I'm not taking assholes with me on my rescue mission because they fucking suck at drawing straws.”

“No sir,” Matthews says, “we're the ones who won.”

Grif's mouth snaps shut.

“All right,” Carolina says from behind them, sounding resigned and like she's _proud_ or something. “Then I guess you'd better get moving.”

“You're not seriously down with this,” Grif tells her.

“I don't have time to _not_ be down with it. I need to get over to that weapons depot yesterday. So you go extract Simmons's squad, make sure those explosive detonate and then get back here for dust off. Clear?”

“I'm probably going to fuck this up,” Grif warns her.

“So be it,” Carolina says stiffly, turning away and nudging Caboose into following her. Caboose waves at Grif over his shoulder and jogs after her profile and Grif is just so stunned that _Carolina_ basically told him that it's _all right_ for him to fail that he's not quite sure what to do with himself.

“Sir?”

Well. Almost not quite sure. “You heard her. Get in the other Warthog. We're going for a ride.”

“Oh my god, all my dreams are coming true,” Matthews gushes, scrambling into the passenger side of a slightly-more-on-fire vehicle behind Grif's.

The entrance to the caves isn't far from the watchtower, but Grif hears the explosions before they make it over there and he stomps on the gas, heart pounding. Fucking hell, he couldn't have, could he? He couldn't have just gone ahead and _done_ it, not for something this small. Simmons wouldn't have. He _can't_ have-

And then he sees dark red armor and dark red accents scattering out from the nearby mouth of a cave and Grif's vision narrows, laser-focused, on the mercs in black pursuing them.

“Yasmin!” Simmons is screaming as he and his squad scramble behind some rocks for cover, “for the record, _let's just blow stuff up on our way out_ is like, the _worst fucking plan ever!_ ”

“I didn't say it was a _sound_ plan, sir!”

There's something about driving that really sets Grif at ease. People seem to think that because he's lazy and because he hates running that he hates moving fast. That's not really true; he just hates having to move fast. Having something else move fast _for_ him is right up his alley.

So Grif switches gears and guns it. He jerks the wheel and slams on the brakes to turn what was going to be graceless tumble into a skid around the rock face where they're camped that, very awesomely he might add, pins two of their pursuers to a nearby boulder and royally fucks up their insides. “'Sup,” Grif shouts, ducking when bullets ricochet off the side of the Warthog. “Get the fuck in!”

“ _Grif,”_ Simmons gasps as he scrambles into the front. Jensen and Yasmin climb into the back and Gold Team rolls up late as usual to collect the other two before they go tearing off again. “Yasmin, do it!”

Yasmin hits the detonator for the remaining explosives and there's an earth-shattering roar behind them; Grif glances over his shoulder to see a dust cloud as tall as the fucking trees swarming after their Warthogs and he stomps on the gas with his other foot like that'll make them go any faster. The ground rumbles and the wheels skid and Grif just barely keeps the thing on the road, glances back again to see Bitters swerving but managing, falling behind into the dust. “ _Bitters_ you better be alive back there!” Grif snaps into their team frequency.

_Not dead yet, sir. Just fucking dusty as shit, goddamn._

Grif sighs and relaxes back into his seat. The rumbling falls behind them as the caves collapse, as they travel along the rainforest pathway and outpace the dust cloud. “If you ever make me come after you again, I'll fucking leave your ass there.”

“You won't,” Simmons laughs, like there's something fucking _funny_ going on.

 

* * *

 

Because _he came._

Because Simmons knew that Grif would drive into a fire for him, and he did.

Because everyone in this car and in the car behind them thinks they're dating, and they're right.

Because everyone back in Armonia thinks they're dating, because Tucker and Wash have this weird obsession with watching them sit too close together. Because everybody in Armonia knows and Simmons hasn't been ridiculed once, hasn't had anybody try to beat him up behind the barracks like his dad always said there would be. Because he and Grif have fucked, have made out, have been together for years and years. Because Grif just looks at him and he _knows,_ he knows Simmons is fucked up, knows that there's things they'll have to do that they won't enjoy but he's willing to do them. Shit, maybe he already _has,_ maybe that's what he meant when he told Simmons he was too old for this shit, this dancing around, this pretending to be something they aren't when they've been what they are since the day they met.

Grif reaches over and fiddles with the radio, somehow manages to get some weird-ass folk rock on there from somewhere. It's not norteño, but it'll do.

“Hey Grif,” Simmons shouts over the wind, over the whoops of both of their squads bouncing along with them, behind them, “I was thinking. Since everybody already believes it anyway, do you wanna hold hands and go steady and stuff?”

There it is again, that incredulous double-take that Simmons _loves_ getting out of Grif because it means he got the upper hand this time, he'd managed to bludgeon through the armored apathy he wears so sturdily around everybody except for him, except for Simmons, and isn't that really just what it boils down to? Who gives a fuck about everything else, about what people will think, about his squad screaming behind them and shouting at the others in the Warthog about what just happened, about what's _expected_ or what's a _scandal_ or what he's afraid to admit? And the end of the day, _literally_ at the end of this day, he knew that Grif would drive right into the fire to save him, and he did.

They're each other's exceptions to all of their rules, right? So fuck the rules.

“You are such a nerd,” Grif laughs, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel to the music. “What the hell do you think we've been doing this entire time?”

Simmons doesn't have an answer to that. But really, this time, he doesn't even need one.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOW DID THIS HAPPEN
> 
> EDIT: [PlayerProphet](http://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayerProphet/pseuds/PlayerProphet) drew [AWESOME FANART](http://artbyprophet.tumblr.com/post/143037610901/playerprophet-we-look-like-a-teen-magazine) of Grif and Simmons's teen photoshoot!!! look at these losers omfg IT'S CAPTURED SO WONDERFULLY!!!


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